Glencore, Anglo management under scrutiny over mine safety

Glencore and Anglo American are under the spotlight in an upcoming inquiry into coal mine safety, triggered after a horrendous explosion earlier this month.

Even the corporate operations of the companies are under scrutiny in the inquiry in Queensland, the first of its kind in more than two decades.

It will look at almost 40 disastrous or potentially high-risk occasions involving methane gas since July last year at four mines.

The investigations were listed in the terms of reference for the inquiry, which was tabled in Parliament by Queensland’s Mines Minister Anthony Lynham.

“The board of inquiry is to make recommendations for improving safety and health practices and procedures to mitigate against the risk of these incidents happening again,” he said.

The inquiry is being run by Terry Martin, a retired District Court judge, and Andrew Hopkins, an expert in occupational safety who previously was an expert witness at the Royal Commission into a 1998 Esso gas plant explosion near Melbourne, and helped the US Chemical Safety Board’s investigation into BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010.

The inquiry will try to determine the nature and cause of an explosion early this month at Anglo’s Grosvenor mine, about 200 kilometres south-west of Mackay. Five contractors suffered severe burns to their upper body and airways.

The inquiry will also look at a string of “high potential incidents”, when an incident causes or has the potential to trigger a significant adverse impact on someone’s safety or health.

All the incidents involved methane exceeding certain levels at central Queensland mines: 27 at Grosvenor, 11 at Anglo’s Grasstree, another at its Moranbah North facility, and one at Oaky North, which is operated by Glencore subsidiary Oaky Creek Holdings.

Risk management

The inquiry will assess whether “the operational practices and management systems in existence at each of the mines or at corporate levels above them … were adequate and effective to achieve compliance with the relevant safety laws and standards”.

It will also make recommendations for any safety improvements, with an interim report due by August and a final report by November.

The CFMEU had earlier this month said Anglo had a history of high gas readings at Grosvenor and safety issues “should have been avoidable”.

Anglo on Thursday argued that the Bowen Basin area was a “methane-rich” zone and it managed this by measures including draining gas and installing extensive ventilation infrastructure.

“We exceed the regulatory requirements at our mines by having a higher number of methane sensors and have additional controls than what is specified in the regulations. Many of the high potential incidents reported to the Mines Inspectorate were from methane exceedances picked up by these additional sensors,” it said.

The miner confirmed having spoken to the minister before the explosion but argued this related to “a technical interpretation of a regulation and Anglo American was presenting an alternative method to managing the methane risk”.

Anglo’s record has already been under the spotlight, with it in 2016 pleading guilty to safety violations following the suffocation death of a worker at Grasstree and it is currently being prosecuted for the 2019 death of another worker at its Moranbah North mine.

Attempts to obtain comment from Glencore have been unsuccessful.