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AngloGold's safety drive pays off
Allan Seccombe
Posted: Thu, 22 May 2008

[miningmx.com] -- AngloGold Ashanti CEO Mark Cutifani has replaced returns for shareholders with safety as the top priority within the world’s third-largest gold producer, and this new emphasis is starting to show results at the flagship Mponeng gold mine.

There have been steady gains since Cutifani, an Australian, replaced Bobby Godsell at the end of July 2007 and management of what will be the world’s deepest gold mine from September are proud of what has been achieved so far.

“Safety was listed as our third value. Mark has made it our first value,” said Johan Viljoen, vice president of AngloGold southern Africa.
I don’t detect the fatalistic attitude we had
“I don’t detect the fatalistic attitude we had in our organisation in 1999,” Viljoen said, adding the mindset then was that accidents were an inevitable part of deep level mining in South Africa.

AngloGold has developed a system of colour-coded flags to fly in a position workers preparing to go under ground can see what the previous 24 hours yielded, whether anyone was hurt or killed. If not, a white flag is flown.

AngloGold managed just two white flag days. In the first quarter of 2008, it registered 16 and nearly two months into the second quarter it’s at 17.

“I believe we will get to 20 for the second quarter,” Viljoen said.

Mponeng has notched up 78 days without a fatality, its longest stretch without a death, he said.

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At the South African mines, which contributed just over half of AngloGold’s profits, the first quarter’s death toll was just three compared to a usual seven to 12, Viljoen said, holding it up as an example of the move towards making working conditions safer.

Mponeng will extend its life by nine years to 2026 by deepening via declines to beyond 3,770 metres from September to become the deepest mine in the world and continue mining the Ventersdorp Contact Reef.

It will take a R9bn scheme to the AngloGold board in October to deepen the mine to between 4,300 and 4,600 metres via three tertiary vertical shafts to reach the Carbon Leader Reef and push the life of Mponeng beyond 2040.

AngloGold is trying to engender a culture of workers in stopes being able to decide that conditions are unsafe and not be, or feel, persecuted for their decision.

A significant killer on deep-level mines is seismic events and fall of ground, a particular hazard of mining deep underground coupled with mine design, rate of mining and geology, Viljoen said.

One of the ways to reduce seismic events is to reduce volumes and well as a method called conditioning, which entails in part drilling a hole three metres into the ore body ahead of mining areas.

“Seismicity will not go away, but we can reduce the consequences thereof,” Viljoen said.