Prohibition notice issued for Solid Energy's Spring Creek mine

The Department of Labour has issued a prohibition notice at Solid Energy’s Spring Creek mine for failing to report a recent event, and not taking active steps to resolve two others.

Acting Chief Inspector Mines, Gavin Taylor says that over the past three weeks, a diesel generator caught fire and injected high concentrations of carbon monoxide into the mine; one of the main fans tripped with no alert to management for 90 minutes; and an underground auxiliary fan tripped on two consecutive days, but did not, as it should have, stop the mining machine.

“Members of my team met Solid Energy this morning, and they determined the events represented failures in management processes. The inspectors were very concerned that the issues had not been fully investigated, yet production had continued.

“The inspectors issued the prohibition notice which stopped the mine’s operations.

“The prohibition notice will only be lifted once Solid Energy has provided an explanation of the events, a thorough investigation has been carried out and engineering controls and management systems have been changed to prevent a recurrence of these issues,” Mr Taylor says.