2022 Conference Presentations

Francesco Mele & Joseph Guinea
BMA & JJ&D Innovations

In continuing with the desire from industry to share in key learnings from site-related incidents and following on from the themes of previous conferences, this session will be an open forum from people (within the industry) who will be talking about key issues and challenges faced at times on their site.

This session will be a grass roots session without “spin”. A simple presentation outlining what occurred and what changes have been implemented to ensure that things are being done differently. It is for you to consider the relevance to your site and determine if you have a similar exposure, and the controls in place to reasonably preclude a similar event.

Facilitator: Damien Wynn, General Manager and Senior Site Executive, AngloAmerican - Grasstree Mine

Sharing their Experiences:

Grader Fatality Incident and Tree Felling Multiple Injury Incident

Paul Stephan, General Manager and SSE, Anglo American Moranbah North Mine

North Goonyella Spontaneous Combustion Event

Peter Baker, Senior Vice President, Underground Operations, Peabody Australia

Drill Rig Incident at Bulgar Open Cut, New South Wales

Jeff Kelly, Operations Manager, Glencore

Facilitator: Kelly Higgins-Devine – Evening Presenter, ABC Radio Brisbane and Queensland

Robert Cohen, MD – Clinical Professor, Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, with a panel comprising:

Fritz Djukic – Inspector of Mines (Occupational Hygiene), Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy

Dr David Cleveland – Occupational Medicine Physician Registra, Sonic HealthPlus

Stephen Smyth – District President, CFMEU M&E, Queensland

Kylie Ah Wong – General Manager – Health, Safety & Training, Glencore Coal Assets Australia

Maryann Wikpaki – Manager HSEC, Glencore North Queensland

Heidi Roberts – Executive Director, Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy

Chaired by Darren Nicholls, Glencore Coal Assets Queensland, with participants from relevant sites.

Continuing Industry’s desire to learn from other sites’ incidents and following past conference themes, this session will feature your fellow Mine Workers sharing the details of issues they have had on their sites. This is meant to be a grass roots session without “spin”. A simple presentation on what occurred and if you went to that particular site now what you would find being done differently. It is for you to consider the relevance to your site and for you to determine if you have a similar exposure and if you have the controls to reasonably preclude a similar event.

Carrying out routine tyre maintenance on mining equipment is the single most likely event to cause a fatality in an Australian mine. The statistics prove tyre maintenance is often a difficult, dangerous and hazardous task.

This session will demonstrate the enormous amounts of energy that are released in a tyre explosion and highlight the relevant controls, why we need to have these in place to prevent such events occurring, and how such preventative measures have failed in the past.

To demonstrate these points a scenario will be enacted that provides an opportunity for both a coal and a metalliferous-based rescue team to demonstrate an emergency response to a catastrophic tyre failure.

Bo Hanson,Director,
Nathan Sharpe, Director,
Laura Geitz and Grant Polwarth, Director, Talisman People Pty Ltd

Prof Patrick Hudson, Delft University of Technology and Hudson Global Consulting

Neville Atkinson, Senior Inspector of Mines (Electrical), Resources Safety and Health Queensland

Neil Pollard, Operational Technology Manager, Glencore Coal Assets Australia

Nathan Cables, Global Head Mining and Industrial, EYECUE by Fingermark (USA)