North Goonyella Fire MRE 9th September 2018

MRE – North Goonyella – 09.09.2018.pdf

Today, 9 August 2018 , Inspector of Mines Paul Brown attended a meeting at North Goonyella Mine to discuss the status of the 9 North goaf which is being monitored for accelerated oxidisation resulting in a Spon Com event believed to be bias to the TG end. 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 Andy Thompson, Shift Undermanager;

Mr Robin Hall, Continuous Improvement Manager;

Mr Charles Lilly, Peabody Senior Director of Engineering;

Mr Peter Baker, Peabody Underground Operations Manager;

Mr Lee Earnshaw, Development Coordinator;

Regional Inspector Les Marlborough joined in by teleconference close to the end of the meeting for an update.

Meeting

Last 24 Hours;-

• ERZ Controllers inspections of the Mine continuing.

Crews updated on progress and volunteers called for to assist with essential services work.

• Ongoing issues with water however pumps are now running, entry to 10 North MG development is a priority;
• Development headings still have less than 0.5% methane in the headings, no changes in past 24hrs;

Have powered whole of mine with exception to 9 North Longwall;

Continued pumping Floxal into 9 North Goaf with all units, no issues with units flows or gas mixture values;

Storm occurred at site 22:00 Hrs 8/9/18 on rising barometer, some increase to oxygen and decrease in methane at Tube 29 and 24, air free CO (AFCO) increase at all three TB points post storm. Increase in AFCO triggered level 4 TARP.

• Simtars arrived on site 21 :30 Hrs, additional Gas Chromatograph now available,
• New borehole down 230m, grouted casing 20:00hrs 8/9/18, waiting 12 hours to dry, Have identified there would be leakage path for oxygen in the rigs current configuration. This requires further assessment before it can be used to intersect the goaf. e Tube bundle point 28 – 21.15 m3/sec; Tube bundle point 29 – 12.67 m3/sec.

Current Status;o Gas levels show no issues of concern. All fluxuations in the past 24hrs can be explained and accounted for. The trends for 24hrs in summary are;

Tube 24, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Methane, Carbon Monoxide, Carbon Dioxide all reduced. Nitrogen increased as expected. Ethylene reduced and then returned to less than original value, Ethane reduced and trending down. Air Free CO reduced, little change in ratios

Tube 28, very similar trends with exception of Carbon Monoxide, slight increase which can be explained by the goaf being purged, this is reflected in the CO make as well. Same trend with Ethane. Air free CO trending down.

Tube 29, has some similar trends, degrease in AFCO, little change in CO make. All three tube bundle points are trending in the predicted direction albeit slow.

The idea of swapping floxal units over at GN1991 and GN2470 was discussed at length with the team and Les Marlborough joined the meeting by teleconference. The idea was to improve the purge by having the larger capacity unit at GN2470. The plan was agreed upon to leave everything as is and gather further data over next 24hrs. The trends of all 3 tube Bundle points are going in the right direction, a significant change now could have a negative impact.

Plan for the next 24 Hours;-

ERZ Controllers continue underground inspections;

• Continue with current monitoring frequency and apply TARP 7 when triggered.

Follow up with Mitchell drilling for hole through assessment and plan to minimise oxygen ingress.

• Pumping remains a priority at the moment, further risk assessments to be commenced to consider other essential works underground and when they can commence;
• Risk Assessment of repowering Longwall to occur, no issues identified with chock leg pressures yet however it has been stood for a week now and restart of pumps or capacity to restart pumps is becoming a priority.

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

I thanked the IMT for their time and explained that Inspector Marlborough and I would return to the Mine at approximately 13:00Hrs on Monday 10 September to review progress and to discuss plans going forward.

Paul Brown	Les Marlborough
Inspector of Mines	Inspector of Mines