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North Goonyella Fire MRE 7th September 2018

North Goonyella Fire MRE 7th September 2018

Today, 7 August 2018  Inspector Les Marlborough, accompanied by Inspector Paul Brown attended a meeting at North Goonyella Mine to discuss the status of the high CO in 9N TG. I was met by UMM Mr Marek Romanski and SSE Mr John Anger.

Meeting

Attending the meeting was;

Mr John Anger, SSE; Mr Marek Romanski, Underground Mine Manager;

Mr Chris Markowski, Tech Services Manager, Mr Robin Hall, Continuous Improvement Manager;

Mr Charles Lilly, Peabody Senior Director of Engineering;

Mr Mike Carter, SSE Millennium Mine;

Mr Peter Baker, Peabody Underground Operations Manager; Mr Lee Earnshaw, Development Coordinator; Mr Rick Sewell, Engineering.

Meeting

Last 24 Hours;-

Completed risk assessment on initial re-entry plan, Stephan Wood, SSHR involved in risk assessment.

0 ERZ Controllers went underground at 1 :30 PM and completed an inspection of the Mine by 6:30 PM.

  • Some issues with water at various locations, namely, entry to 10 South MG, water approx.

0.5m deep: worst affected area is ION MG development. Water at 17 CT about 600 mm from roof;

  • Development headings only have around 0.5% methane in the headings;

0 Cancelled the plan to start powering up on NS. Mine chose to wait until day shift to allow extra time for gas levels at 9 N01t11 Longwall to stabilise and drop further away from the TARP trigger points;

Continued pumping Floxal into 9 North Goaf at TG end, and two boreholes 1991 and 2470, o Completed risk assessment and commenced drilling hole into goaf behind TG end of the Longwall.

Current Status;-

  • Gas levels show no issues of concern. Tube 24 showed a rise in Oxygen at around 4:00 AM. Investigation showed that it was an Issue with the Floxal that was producing too much oxygen. Unit repaired and now being manned at all times.
  • The relocation of the Tube 29 in the TG Chute Road was discussed. Mine agreed to relocate this tube back to its original position to ensure consistency of monitoring and so that it effectively monitors the general body gases coming out of the TG Chute road. Still have CO reporting to TG Chute Road (around 160 ppm), TG end of face, tube 24 has CO at around 280 ppm and is fairly steady,
  • All other indicators are as expected with no cause for concern.

Plan for the next 24 Hours;-

  • ERZ Controllers underground inspecting and preparing to power up. Priority is to get gas monitoring and communications up and running first (mainly DACs);

After power established will commence work to get stats completed and recommence pumping;

  • Next, will turn compressed air back on to get compressed air pumps working;

Then will slowly turn water back on to the Mine so as not to shock load pipe ranges;  After water is back on work will start recovering diesel vehicles that have been underground since the withdrawal of persons. Some will be able to brake tested underground, others will need to be brought out to surface;

  • As a priority, will re-establish tube bundle point 29 to sample chute road general body;

0 Large Floxal unit arriving from NSW late afternoon. Intend to have this commissioned and running by midnight. This will be placed on hole 1991. Capacity of the large unit is approximately 1,000 1/s. The small Floxal on hole 1991 will be relocated to a borehole that is located at the TG end of the face.

Conducting Risk Assessment on other work that can be conducted at the Mine once gas levels are stable and mine has been successfully reopened (Conveyor maintenance, splicing etc. — not development production at this stage);

Setting up to be able to use the 9 North Maingate Floxal and inject down hole 2470 during the Diurnal lows;

Copies of the current gas data spreadsheets were provided to the Inspectors.

There was in depth discussion regarding the TARPS that the Mine is using during this period,

The current TARPS are not completely relevant due to the current situation. The Active Goaf TARP is not totally relevant as the longwall is no longer active, The Sealed Goaf TARP is not relevant as the Longwall is not sealed. The inspectors made it clear that the Mine needs to establish trigger points to ensure there are no “false alarms” and equally as important, trigger points that identify when the situation changes so that investigation into the change can commence before it reaches a critical evacuation trigger. At the moment the Mine is using the Sealed Goaf TARP as it more closely matches the situation but they agreed to review this.

We had further discussions regarding the sealing plan for the ongoing shield recovery once this recommences. The Mine needs to submit a change to sealing plan to the Inspector in accordance with CMSHR s328, as the original sealing method has changed. This should be in line with the revised sealing process that the Mine decides will occur.

I thanked the people for their time and explained that Inspector Marlborough would return to the Mine at 9:00 AM on Saturday 9 September to review progress and to discuss plans going forward.

 

Les Marlborough                      Paul Brown

Inspector of Mines                       Inspector of Mines

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