WA miners hit by lockdown despite exemption
The WA mining industry has grounded its Perth-based FIFO workforce despite the state government allowing travel for “essential” workers.
The WA mining industry has grounded its Perth-based FIFO workforce despite the state government allowing travel for “essential” workers, cancelling flights to remote mines and extending shifts for workers on site in the hope the WA coronavirus outbreak is contained by the end of the week.
Miners were initially told their Perth-based fly-in fly-out employees would be subject to the same lockdown rules as the rest of Perth, but on Sunday evening Police Commissioner Chris Dawson designated WA’s entire FIFO workforce – along with construction, mining and infrastructure workers – as “essential”, meaning they could travel to their places of work if their employer needed their attendance to keep operations running.
But a meeting of resources companies on Monday elected to keep to the spirit of the five-day lockdown, agreeing to minimise the movement of staff and cancelling the movement of outbound workers to the Pilbara.
It is understood the agreement was reached among Chamber of Minerals and Energy members on Monday morning, agreeing to halt the movement of workers unless their presence was critical to keep a mining operation running.
More than 2500 workers were due to leave Perth on Monday but scores of flights from Perth’s airport were cancelled as miners responded to the spirit of the travel bans.
CMEWA chief executive Paul Everingham said he believed the impact of the lockdown would be relatively minimum, if it was restricted to only five days.
“The priority of CME and its members remains the health and safety of the wider community and the sector’s workforce. As such, as responsible members of the WA community, we are keeping all outbound Perth travel to an absolute minimum,” he said.
It is understood the resources sector will review their approach to the lockdown later in the week, when it is clear whether the virus is spreading through the community, before deciding whether to push for a resumption of FIFO flights’
Premier Mark McGowan announced the five day lockdown on Sunday after the coronavirus escaped from a quarantine hotel, telling mining companies that movement to mine sites would be banned.
Orders issued by Mr Dawson late on Sunday evening designated miners as essential workers, suggesting the state government had decided that travel for fly-in, fly-out could resume as normal, within the guidelines and testing regimes already established by the mining sector.
But Mr McGowan said on Monday that, despite the Police Commissioner’s directions, miners had been told to keep travel to a minimum and “do the right thing”.
“I also want to clarify a few things from overnight. Overall the message for everyone is to stay home,” he said.
“We have communicated with all companies that no one should be leaving Perth, Peel or the southwest regions to fly to a mine site this week with some limited exemptions, especially for specialists required to ensure the mine is operating.”
Mr Dawson said the mining industry had operated well after being exempted from movement restrictions in the early stages of the pandemic in 2020.
“We want to make sure that the infrastructure keeps going, but the major resource companies we spoke to have been co-operative and we saw the system worked well without any leakage in transmission over the past year in terms of that,” Mr Dawson said.
“It is in these company’s best interests that we keep all of the work sites clean and that is why I think the co-operation has been very good.”
But, speaking at the same press conference as the WA Premier, Mr Dawson suggested he would still make some adjustments to his initial directions to clarify the rules for FIFO workers, with his initial directions believed to have left out some categories of workers essential in the oil and gas industry, and specialist roles such as the marine pilots that guide bulk carriers out of iron ore ports such as Port Hedland.
“As the Premier has mentioned, we’ve had strong engagement with the resource sector and they have advised that they will adjust their swing shifts, so we‘re not moving people around the state unnecessarily,” he said.
“But I’m amending the directions I signed last night to ensure that if there is critical essential work that has to be done to keep our mines and the operations going, that is permissible.”
Industry sources say the new rules are essentially a direction to companies to defer non-essential work where they can, with most companies confident they can keep running through the initial five day period without major impacts to production.
The lockdown orders apply only to Perth and WA’s Peel and South West region, and miners operating in WA’s Goldfields told the market on Monday they did not expect to be affected by the travel restrictions.
Northern Star Resources and Saracen Mineral Holdings, who are completing a merger that will unify the Kalgoorlie Super Pit and their other WA operations, and Westgold released statements to the market on Monday saying they did not expect to be affected by the lockdowns.
A spokesman for Rio said the company had “implemented relevant controls for the duration of the lockdown”.
Iron ore miner and contractor Mineral Resources said it had immediately implemented the stay-at-home directions issued on Sunday, and would mobilise only essential workers.
“All workers going to site will be screened and must return a negative result prior to mobilisation. Following the screening, the worker will be instructed to remain in strict isolation at home post-screening and before they fly out to site,” the company said.
MinRes said it would also open two of its drive-through worker testing sites, including one at the Perth Airport, for use by the public amid long queues at facilities run by hospitals and the health department.
MinRes boss Chris Ellison said the company supported the state government’s efforts to keep the industry running, despite concerns about the latest quarantine hotel leaks.
“The state government has been very clear on their desire to keep the state’s mining industry open for business,” he said.
“Mineral Resources, as a key player of this essential industry and employing nearly 4,000 men and women, is committed to assisting the Government in this latest outbreak by offering our world-class facilities to the community to help take pressure off the Government screening facilities.”
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