BMA Peak Downs Mines Section 167 Directive suspending mobile plant operations. This cannot be a Force Majeure or Act of God. BMA cannot claim it is “completely beyond the parties’ control and they could not have prevented its consequences.”
The situation at Peak Downs has finally hit the media.
Most operations have been suspended for 5 days now with no overburden or coal being mined and transported and the washplant has been shut down.
The Peak Downs coking coal blend is BMA’s jewel in the crown for export coking coal and there is rumored use of Peak Downs produced coal to assist its Sister Operations such as Goonyella Riverside in filling customer contracts.
Surely BMA is duty bound to make a public statement both to the Australian Stock Market and its overseas customers in China, South Korea etc
Mine safety regulator restricts BMA’s Peak Downs Mine over unacceptable levels of risk – ABC News‘
The Mine Record Entry directed that operations be suspended due to unacceptable levels of risk, whole of mine.
The suspension only applies to parts of the mine’s operations, with some activity including the dragline and light vehicle use allowed to continue.
Inspector of Mines Paul Brown noted that on average a truck slide happened at the Peak Downs Mine every two weeks.
“In considering the data, the frequency of re-occuring (sic) incidents and the magnitude of the two incidents … it is for these reasons I formed the belief that particular mining operations at the Peak Downs Mine are not conducted at an acceptable level of risk,” Mr Brown wrote.
“In the past 12 months there had been 33 separate incidents involving mobile plant resulting in unplanned movements.
“Within this data, 24 of the movements involved rear dump trucks or articulated trucks.”
The suspension of operations will remain in place until the inspectorate determines that risks at the mine can be managed within acceptable limits.
In the past BMA has declared Force Majeure several times mostly due to extreme bad weather, mostly cyclone related
BHP Billiton confirms that force majeure has been declared for all BMA Coal and all BMC Coal products as a result of damage caused by Cyclone Debbie to the network infrastructure of rail track provider Aurizon.
https://www.bhp.com/news/media-centre/releases/2017/04/statement
The biggest problem for BMA is that the the usual type of definition for Force Majeure follows that defined by accounting firm PWC.
The situation at Peak Downs has been self-induced and BMA cannot blame anyone but its own safety management system both Brisbane Corporate and at Peak Downs Mine
This is not an Act of God, war or industrial action and it was and is completely within BMA’s control and they could have prevented the consequences
https://www.pwc.com.au/legal/assets/investing-in-infrastructure/iif-30-force-majeure-clauses-feb16-3.pdf
By itself, the term force majeure has been construed to cover acts of God; war and strikes, even where the strike is anticipated; embargoes, refusals to grant licences; and abnormal weather conditions.
There are generally three essential elements to force majeure:
• It can occur with or without human intervention
• It cannot have reasonably been foreseen by the parties
• It was completely beyond the parties’ control and they could not have prevented its consequences.
There is an important caveat to the above and that is parties cannot invoke a force majeure clause if they are relying on their own acts or omissions. Additionally, the force majeure event must be a legal or physical restraint and not merely an economic one.
Yes BMA has also invoked industrial action back in 2012 for Force Majeure as well
BMA has blamed bad weather and industrial action for not meeting contract requirements on its Queensland coal mines.
BMA, when are you going to make an official announcement?
When will you officially let the Stock Market and Customers know?
BMA, what will you say about how BMA has almost deliberately allowed Safety and Health to descend to such pitiful levels for over 2 years at Corporate and Mine Site level and effectively it seems done nothing to address the underlying problems?
Fortunately on this occasion the Inspector has Suspended operations before someone is seriously injured or killed.
BMA seems incapable of doing such itself after the loss of control for over 30 trucks as well as multiple other incidents including Dozers in mud and water
How and why has RSHQ allowed this to go on for so long?
Perhaps RSHQ have indeed learnt from the Grosvenor Explosions in 2020 and the subsequent Ministerial Board of Inquiry.
At Grosvenor RSHQ allowed over 30 methane gas exceedances before the explosion that almost killed 5 workers in LW 104 panel.
Why does it seem to take 30 or more similar HPI’s to maybe stir up some action at RSHQ.
Maybe if RSHQ CEO Mark Stone actually fronted the media and answered direct questions we might find out
At least no Peak Downs mine workers had to be seriously injured or killed before RSHQ has taken Action this time , despite being about a year too late.
Even worse, perhaps the Big Australian still doesn’t see that their operations are dangerous and still waiting for the death of a worker to take any action without being forced to by the RSHQ who have been asleep at the wheel for the past year, or at least so it seems.
