Glencore wins two major mining awards in New South Wales

Media statement

Glencore has won two major awards at last night's New South Wales Mining Industry Awards in the Hunter Valley.

The awards reflect a strong focus on the health and welfare of our employees and management of environmental impacts across our coal mining operations in the region.

Glencore's Ravensworth open cut operations won awards in the Safety and Environment Excellence categories.

A healthy workforce initiative put in place at our Mt Owen mine by operaters Thiess also took out the Health Excellence category of the awards.

"Each of our coal mines is looking to achieve continuous improvement in all areas of operation, and this year's award wins clealy demonstrate this commitment," said Steve Hubert, General Manager of Glencore's Greater Ravensworth coal mines.

Ravensworth's open cut mine has created an industry first with a project that is successfully monitoring gas levels in blast plumes.

The site pioneered use of a gas monitor mounted on a drone to fly through blast plumes to track the level and rates of dissipation of gas, particularly nitrogen dioxide.

"The monitoring will provide the industry, our regulators and our communities with greater reassurance of our blast management process," Mr Hubert said.

"Importantly, the monitoring has also shown that no NO₂ has left the site in more than 50 blasts that have been monitred to date."

An engineered solution to removal of crusher teeth at Ravensworth coal preparation plant won the Safety Excellence category award.

A technique that employs hydraulic power to dismantle the equipment has saved maintenance employees from the onerous task of undertaking this work using sledgehammers.

"This is an initiative that will improve health and safety of employees not only across Glencore's operations but others in the coal business as well as many other industries where this crushing equipment is in use," said Mr Hubert.

Mr Hubert also congratulated Thiess, operators of our Mt Own coal mine, on their success in the Health Excellence category.

The Positively Healthy initiative has achieved real weight loss and positive overall health outcomes across the Mt Owen workforce.

For further information, please contact:

Media

Allyn Hamonet
m: +61 418 228 075
e: Allyn Hamonet

Francis De Rosa
m: +61 417 074 751
e: Francis De Rosa

Notes for editors

Glencore's coal business in Australia

Glencore is one of Australia’s largest coal producers with 13 mining complexes—including 17 operational mines—across New South Wales and Queensland.

We employ almost 10,000 Australians and in 2017 managed the production of more than 88 million tonnes of thermal and coking coal, predominantly for export.

We have a strong safety and environmental performance and play an active role in the development of low emission coal technology.