North Goonyella Mine Fire 24th September 2018. “At the 9:30am dial up, all parties agreed that considering the increasing gas trends the best strategy was to seal the TG chute road.”
MRE – North Goonyella – 24.09.2018.pdf
The most relevant Sections of the Mine Record Entry are below.
While not stating what the gas readings are Inspector Brennan states they are “increasing” (getting worse).
Due to no-one being allowed underground the only way the TG chute road can be sealed is via a borehole from the surface.
I am unsure what was expected by just sealing the chute road without also sealing the MG roadways and chute road and the Tailgate of 9Nth at the same time.
It is not sealing 9Nth Longwall block and take-off.
Existing heating and ventilation circuit remain essentially unchanged. Products of combustion will just now report to the Tailgate (Tube 24) and Longwall Return (Tube 28).
Note also that the Control Room and Gas Monitoring Equipment have to be re-located and Exclusion Zones set up around the Tunnel Mouth. Broadmeadow Mine has to be drafted in to run gas bag sampling because of the need to move the Control Room and Gas Monitoring from its current location about 50m from the M and M Drift
- At the 9:30am dial up, all parties agreed that considering the increasing gas trends the best strategy was to seal the TG chute road.
- The decision was made then to consider parallel tasking Rocsil rod insertion and environment monitoring, this would be ratified by the NGC 1M T and if so by 5pm a firm commitment needed to be made via consultation to seal the TG chute road
- At 5:00pm a meeting was held with relevant parties, Dr D.Cliff, D Brady, M. Carter, M. Romanski, P. Baker, G. Schuller, J. Anger and the NGC IMT. At this meeting it was agreed that the best course of action should be to immediately seal the TG chute road when the Rocsil rod insertion was scheduled to be completed at 10pm
- RE-ENTRY PLAN : RA- Control of risk to surface personnel following sealing of LW9N TG chute road
1 1 Implement controls as per identified in item #10 such as barricade boreholes, barricade and lock surface infrastructure (exclusion zones), relocate GC and Control Room, arrange for Broadmeadow to run bag samples
Today the 24th September 2018 Department of Natural Resources Mines and Energy Inspector Keith Brennan travelled to North Goonyella underground operations to continue monitoring the mine’s progress in managing a spontaneous combustion event occurring on Longwall 9 North recovery faceline.
Meeting Attendees:-
Peabody Operations Manager Peter Baker
North Goonyella SSE John Anger
Underground Mine Manager Marek Romanski
General Manager Metropolitan Andy Hyslop
Technical Services Manager Steven Stook
Ventilation Officer Dennis Black
Development Coordinator Lee Earnshaw
Health Safety and Training Superintendent Jeff Perks
SSHR John Pearson
Dial in:- George Schuller President Australia, Technical Consultant Darren Brady, Compliance Manager Nev Impson
Last 24
- Drilling GN2700 – target depth of 349 (with stand off of 15m) at 10pm, back reaming out of hole completed at 2:30am and commenced casing at 3:30am
- Drilling GN2699 – labour re-tasked to assist with running down Rocsil rods into GN2697 3 Drilling 2696 – completed drill out of hole and re-established casing – hole still stagnant, will attempt to pressurise it up to introduce flow with Floxal if required
- Liquid N2 ran out of flow at 6:32am, re-established at 4pm into GN2698
- 3rd Narrabri unit ETA on site Tuesday next week at 305 1/s
- At EOS NS, the Floxal status indicates an overall increase of 471/s from start of shift DS 23/9/18
- At the 9:30am dial up, all parties agreed that considering the increasing gas trends the best strategy was to seal the TG chute road.
- The decision was made then to consider parallel tasking Rocsil rod insertion and environment monitoring, this would be ratified by the NGC 1M T and if so by 5pm a firm commitment needed to be made via consultation to seal the TG chute road
- At 5:00pm a meeting was held with relevant parties, Dr D.Cliff, D Brady, M. Carter, M. Romanski, P. Baker, G. Schuller, J. Anger and the NGC IMT. At this meeting it was agreed that the best course of action should be to immediately seal the TG chute road when the Rocsil rod insertion was scheduled to be completed at 10pm
- RE-ENTRY PLAN : RA- Control of risk to surface personnel following sealing of LW9N TG chute road
1 1 Implement controls as per identified in item #10 such as barricade boreholes, barricade and lock surface infrastructure (exclusion zones), relocate GC and Control Room, arrange for Broadmeadow to run bag samples
12 At 11 :30pm Rocsil was pumped underground through to 4am, at approximately 1:55am,
02 began to reduce at TB38 (E-Frame monitoring point) from 20.2% to 1.51% at 7:21 am 13 Discussed using QMRS foam into GN2698 instead of Floxal but due to the reduced capacity of the foam at 50 1/s, it was dismissed relative to using higher capacity Floxal
Next 24
1 RE-ENTRY PLAN : RA – Control of risk to surface personnel following sealing of LW9N TG chute road – review to identify when to remove the exclusion zones and re-instate services 2 Re-establish GC facility and calibrate with high CO span gas
- QMRS Foam prepare set up for GN2700 hole through
- Continue filling in Mine Re-entry Assessment System (MRAS) questionnaire, 5 modules completed
- Finalise floxal distribution plan, including additional holes on the basis of gas trends and inertisation strategy
- Raise casing for GN2696 by 12m
- RE-ENTRY PLAN RA – chute road sealing (to allow underground entry to extract LW9N supports) review plan
- RE-ENTRY PLAN : RA – chute road sealing (to allow underground entry to extract LW9N supports) – review WRAC
- Take Bag samples from TB#14, TB#38 on a 2 hourly basis
- Site preparation for GN2701 contingency hole for LW9N MG chute road and decide on optimum location 11 Complete GN2699
12 Prepare set-up for re-drill GN2690
Floxal Strategy
Tuesday 25th September – Floxal maintenance planned
Re-task Millennium spare compressor to NGC
Finalise floxal distribution plan, including additional holes on the basis of gas trends and inertisation strategy
