Australia – Anglo American

It’s innovative – and it’s up for big recognition in Mackay tomorrow night. The team operating our tele-remote dozers at the Capcoal Complex are finalists in two categories at the Queensland Mining Awards. They are up for the Safety Initiative Award and the Innovation Miner Award. Good luck! Bowen Basin Mining Club Queensland Resources Council

We led the Queensland coal industry in creating a new approach to dealing with bullying, sexual harassment and discrimination issues.   And this week Kanae. A. Dyas and Cameron Carr from our Workplace Support Unit are up for a major industry award.   Both are nominated in the Queensland Mining Awards for their industry-leading program that helps our people through incidents of bullying, sexual harassment and discrimination.   They are nominated for the Community, Staff Engagement or EEO Initiative Award – with the winner to be announced on Wednesday in Mackay.   Good luck! Queensland Resources Council Bowen Basin Mining Club

Our progress towards stabilisation of Grosvenor Mine continues with all indications from our continuous monitoring trending in the right direction. We have moved back into our main offices on site, and access to the warehouse and workshop is restored. We have successfully temporarily sealed another shaft with rocsil® foam on site. This product is a mix of resin and a catalyst that produces an immediate foaming reaction followed by a rapid expansion to as much as 35 times its original volume.

“You can’t be what you can’t see. When women see other women … they see that that’s an avenue.” Great words from Moranbah North Mine longwall operator Lil Shanley, who’s featured in today’s Daily Mercury, along with Jodie Kelly and Ben Mansour. The feature highlights how creating more inclusive mine sites benefits both men and women. Women make up more than 30 per cent of our leadership positions, and almost 20 per cent of the company overall. We are focused on creating true gender equity and inclusion. It’s just the start, but we are committed to driving a values driven culture where talent knows no gender and where every individual is empowered to thrive.

Drone footage shows continued positive progress toward stabilising Grosvenor Mine.  We continue to regularly check underground pressure levels and gas composition at different points from the surface.   Our focus is to ensure we are aware of any areas of potential oxygen ingress or leakage. During the day, our survey team uses drones to conduct visual checks of the site and measure temperatures where there are connections to underground workings. All data gathered is analysed and monitored carefully for trends, spikes or changes. So far all indications suggest we continue to move toward stabilising the mine. The Queensland Mines Rescue Service GAG unit remains switched off, but it is still connected, should we need to turn it back on. We will continue our monitoring processes and draw from external analysis of the data, until we reach a point where the GAG can be safely removed. Other boilers and low flow inert gas generators continue to pump into the mine, but at a significantly lower rate.   While our data trends positively, the situation continues to evolve. We are actively planning for the next steps, including when exclusion zones could potentially be removed and access to the mine infrastructure areas may be possible.

Industry expertise has been crucial to our efforts to stabilise the situation at Grosvenor Mine. A Resources Safety & Health Queensland safety in mines testing and research station (SIMTARS) truck is located on site, providing independent monitoring and analysis of our gas monitoring activities, including the composition of gases underground.   Independent gas chemists are also providing gas chromatographs, monitoring and analysis of the composition of gases underground. This is in addition to teams from Queensland Mines Rescue Service (QMRS) working on site, and our close collaborations with many stakeholders, including unions and government. This collaboration has made a lot of progress over the past 24 hours to further stabilise the mine and seal the smaller auxiliary points. This means the QMRS GAG, boilers and nitrogen units can be more effective and our focus now is on allowing time for the inertisation equipment to fill the mine underground.    A second GAG unit is expected to arrive on site during the next 24 hours to add further support the operation.

We’ve been working hard to ensure the entire Grosvenor Mine workforce has certainty over the coming weeks. Through an industry-first working group that has included senior representatives from all unions covering our operations in Queensland, we’ve secured a good outcome. All full-time employees and embedded contractors at Grosvenor will be paid until 31 August, which will be two months from the event. We will keep working with industry peers, unions and all stakeholders in the days and weeks ahead to ensure ongoing certainty for our workforce. Isaac Regional Council I Queensland Resources Council I Minerals Council of Australia I NSW Minerals Council I Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union I Mining and Energy Union I Collieries' Staff and Officials Association I Electrical Trades Union of Australia

Work is progressing safely and according to plan towards the temporary sealing of Grosvenor Mine. This work is taking time as our priority is to ensure the safety of everyone on site while we stabilise the underground environment. A Queensland Mines Rescue Service GAG jet-engine is a key component of our incident response. The GAG is connected to a ventilation shaft on site and is sending inert gas into the mine. This high-pressure jet-engine generates large volumes of low-oxygen inert gas that will eventually extinguish the fire and make the atmosphere underground safe. The exhaust steam from the GAG is a mix of inert gas and water vapour. This high-tech machine is operated by the QMRS Mine Inertisation Unit, a specialist team of mine rescue personnel from coal mines across Queensland. The mines rescue response on display is a true testament to the spirit of teamwork and collaboration that exists in the mining industry. We offer our sincere appreciation to the team at the site, including QMRS, Resources Safety & Health Queensland and ISHRs who are supporting this response. All independent monitoring continues to report readings within acceptable limits, indicating no impact for community health from smoke or airborne contaminants. However, anyone concerned should seek medical advice. We acknowledge that this event may be causing uncertainty for the workforce and local community. We are actively collaborating with all four unions with a shared commitment to ensuring safety and stability at Grosvenor Mine and providing ongoing certainty for our workforce.

Drone footage of our remote controlled dozer, on loan from Dawson Mine. The dozer is approaching a ventilation shaft on site at Grosvenor and is assisting with temporary seal efforts. An operator controls the dozer remotely using hand-held controls. It first needs to remove the shaft housing above ground level so it can gain access to the shaft into the underground area to plug. Dirt is pushed into the 6m diameter shaft which was successfully sealed in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

A joint statement from Kelly Vea Vea, Mayor of Isaac Regional Council, Stephen Smyth, General Vice President Mining and Energy Union (MEU), and Dan van der Westhuizen, Chief Executive Officer Anglo American in Australia. On Saturday, 29 June a localised ignition occurred on the longwall face at Anglo American’s Grosvenor Mine, resulting in an underground combustion event. A complete and orderly withdrawal from all underground areas to the surface was then safely completed, with all personnel safe and fully accounted for. We would like to offer our sincere appreciation to the teams managing the response at the site. Grosvenor Mine is a significant employer in the Moranbah region and takes its commitments to its people and the community seriously. We know its positive impact reaches far beyond the mine gates. We acknowledge that this event may be causing uncertainty for the workforce and local community. The priority for the team on site is to safely extinguish the underground fire by temporarily sealing the mine. Specialist emergency response teams, including the Queensland Mines Rescue Service, RSHQ, ISHRs (MEU) and mines rescue teams from neighbouring mines, are managing this from the surface. We are working closely together to keep the community informed of the potential impact from smoke. We have been in contact with the environmental regulator (DESI). DESI monitoring units are providing air quality data for particulate matter in the Moranbah area and those air quality readings have so far remained within DESI's ‘Good’ (green) quality category. External health specialists have reassured us that, based on current information they have, there is no impact to community health. However, any member of the community concerned about the risk to them or their family, should seek medical advice. Isaac Regional Council, MEU and Anglo American are continuing to collaborate on a daily basis to ensure our focus is on getting Grosvenor Mine stabilised and keeping the community safe and informed. We will continue to work together with RSHQ to understand the next steps with a view to implementing a safe restart and continued safe operation, at the appropriate time. (Pictured is Anglo American CEO in Australia Dan van der Westhuizen, Isaac Regional Council mayor Kelly Vea Vea and Mining and Energy Union district vice president Jeff Pearce.)