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"Small explosions" at Lonmin smelter, says union
Allan Seccombe
Posted: Wed, 21 May 2008
[miningmx.com] -- SOUTH African trade union Solidarity said there have been a "series of small explosions" at platinum producer Lonmin's Merensky smelter near Mooinooi.
"The smelter is still working and has not shut down," Solidarity spokesman Reint Dykema told Miningmx.
"Our big problem is that Lonmin has not informed the Department of Minerals and Energy or the unions, which normally happens with incidents like this," he said.
"The DME must look into this and say if it is safe to continue working there," he said.
Lonmin spokesperson Alex Shorland-Ball said there had been no impact on production and the "relatively minor" issue has been addressed.
"Our Merensky furnace is operating normally and there have been no major incidents with the furnace. In the course of normal operations we occasionally have matte run outs into slag," she said. These runs
cause a puff of smoke and flame, she said, confirming a small building had been burnt because of such an occurrence.
"These are very small incidents and have no impact on production. We have notified the DME of all incidents that we are required to notify to them and will continue to do so," she said. "The union used pretty emotive words."
"We have made modifications to the slag launders, fairly minor modifications to address the matter," she added.
Solidarity said in a statement released on Wednesday the most recent explosion was on 13 May and burnt down an adjacent tea room, damaged instrumentation and setting fire to electrical cables.
"We have tried for a whole week to engage management on this issue but we've found only closed doors. We tried to go the internal route to deal with this issue but there was no commitment from management's side to address this," Dykema said.
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