The owners, Leaf Resources, have suspended shares in the company from trade and expect that shareholders will remain without the ability to offload them until March, five months after the event that destroyed up to 15 per cent to the plant.

It still does not have a plan finalised on getting back to previously stated production goals.

Leaf produces chemicals from pine trees, namely turpenes used in food flavouring, disinfectants, health products and perfumes. It replaces petroleum-based products.

According to managing director Ray Mountford there were no answers yet and Worksafe remained involved in an investigation into the cause of the explosion which injured one worker.

“We are working on a new technology which inherently carries risk. Fate has delivered this message the hard way,” Mountford said.

“Nevertheless, going forward we are making improvements which will minimise the possibility of such incidents in the future.

“We are back in the factory fixing the machinery which was damaged in the explosion and we are in the process of sourcing new equipment with additional safety features to replace the parts which were damaged.

“It was an extremely difficult time particularly since the process had been proved to work in the year leading up to the explosion.

“Our goal is that we will emerge stronger from this.

“Despite the extensive work carried out since the incident more is required before the company is in a position to solidify a defined plan outlining how the company will achieve 16,000 tonnes of production, as was targeted before the incident.

“Towards the end of this quarter we expect to have a firmer timeframe of our plant recovery and production schedule. Our confidence in our emerging recovery plan is increasing with continuing support and encouragement from our pine wood suppliers, stump-pulling contractors and key customers.”