Anglo American chief lobbied minister on gas regulations before explosion

An Anglo American boss rang Queensland’s Mines Minister to complain about regulations days before a deadly methane explosion.

Moranbah, 7 May 20, Grosvenor Coal Mine Blast. Grosvenor Coal Mine Picture: Daryl Wright

On a Thursday morning in April, Anglo American’s chief executive of metallurgical coal, Tyler Mitchelson, dialled into a teleconference with the Queensland Mines Minister, Anthony ­Lynham.

Mitchelson, a Canadian appointed the head of the company’s coking coal business two years ago, was on a mission. In January, the state government had introduced tough methane-monitoring rules. Anglo hadn’t been consulted prior, and three of its underground mines were notoriously gassy.

Sources familiar with the meeting say Mitchelson wanted the new rules relaxed; Anglo American says no, Mitchelson was presenting an alternative method of managing the methane risk.

He’d struck out with the regulator, the Queensland Mines Inspectorate, so he’d gone straight to the top. Mitchelson wanted the government to get third-party expert advice about how best to manage methane.

Lynham was having none of it. He shut Mitchelson down, and told him the company must follow the new rules.

Lynham knew that earlier that month, the inspectorate had directed Anglo’s Grosvenor and Grasstree mines to suspend operations for an “unacceptable level of risk” for a day and a matter of hours respectively, until they followed regulations about positioning methane gas sensors underground. Furious, he hung up on the executive.

Just 13 days later on May 6, in circumstances still being investigated, methane exploded underground at Anglo American’s Grosvenor coalmine, nearly killing five contract miners.

The blast happened shortly before 3pm when the men were working about 300m below ground. The shearer machine, which cuts coal, had been stopped, and the men were in the process of manually shifting “chocks”, or hydraulic supports, to allow mining to continue.

Turi Wiki, 44, was farthest from the blast, his four co-workers, aged 43, 45 and two aged 51, were closer. The explosion was so powerful it melted their helmets and earplugs, and burnt their uniforms. The closer four suffered terrible burns to their lungs, throats and faces.

Driven by adrenaline and despite their injuries, it is understood the five men managed to run about 300m to safety, to their other colleagues at the maingate, who drove them out of the mine to immediate medical help.

 

Now, nearly two months after the explosion, Wiki has been released from hospital, but his fellow miners are still in the burns unit in the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital. They’ve been moved out of intensive care but face a long road, with more surgeries and skin grafts to come.

In a message to all Grosvenor staff, the mine’s executives say the men are all able to take short walks around the ward.

Only Wiki has released a statement, asking for privacy after a traumatic time for him, his injured colleagues and all of their families. None of the others has spoken publicly.

All Grosvenor staff are being offered counselling. Many are off work with full pay because mining was halted at the site after the explosion. And after a second blast on June 8 — causing no injuries — no one has been underground, not even investigators.

Many in the mining industry are hoping the Grosvenor disaster will be the catalyst for major change. The Queensland resources sector has had a horror two years: there have been eight deaths in state coalmines and quarries, and now an underground methane explosion – the first there since the Moura mine disaster in 1994 that killed 11 people.

Powerful interests are at play in trying to fix the sector. Mining is big business in Queensland, with the state’s ailing economy relying heavily on the jobs and royalties it delivers. At last year’s budget, coal royalties alone were estimated to be worth $4.3bn.

Ordering a rare board of inquiry into the Grosvenor explosion, as well as a string of high-methane incidents at Grosvenor and nearby mines in the year leading up to the blast, Lynham declared “an underground gas explosion in a coalmine is simply unacceptable in the 21st century”.

He has repeatedly declined to be interviewed by The Australian.

The board of inquiry will be led by retired District Court judge Terry Martin and former Queensland chief inspector of mines Andrew Clough, who has worked for mining companies, including Peabody. Clough replaced Australian National University health and safety expert Andrew Hopkins.

In a sign of how critical the inquiry is to Anglo, Hopkins recused himself from the role after Anglo’s counsel complained about an industry interview he had given, after the Grosvenor explosion but before the inquiry was ordered.

In it, Hopkins, who studied previous mining accidents and analyses problems with organis­ational culture, says from early media reporting he had seen, it seemed similarities with the Moura dis­aster were “very striking”.

“It seems there were consistently high levels of methane gas being recorded at that mine, explosive levels of methane gas, and this was apparently one of the main causes of this accident,” he says. “This was known beforehand, there were concerns raised beforehand, and nothing effective was done. In that respect, this was very like the Moura accident.

“I want to repeat, this is the pattern which is present in almost every accident I have studied, that there are warning signs, telltale signs, people at the grassroots will speak about ‘This was an accident waiting to happen’, but nothing was done about it. It falls into that pattern in a very tragic way.”

While Anglo American declined to comment on Hopkins’s recusal, it is understood the company argued that the interview made it appear as if he had already formed an opinion on the Grosvenor explosion, based on allegedly incorrect information, and there was the potential of perceived bias.

Hopkins declined to comment.

Leaked documents reveal Grosvenor recorded at least 98 “dangerously” high methane levels underground between early 2016, when the mine started operating, and this year’s explosion.

Anglo says its underground mines are in a methane-rich area of the Bowen Basin and the company manages it by draining gas before and during mining, installing ventilation and having more methane sensors than required by the regulations.

A spokeswoman for Anglo American said Mitchelson and Lynham’s teleconference was about ventilation regulation, and unrelated to the explosion.

“We support strong mines safety regulation … the issue being referred to related to a technical interpretation of a new regulation, where there had not been an opportunity for detailed industry consultation, and where we believed there was benefit in obtaining third party expert advice about how best to manage the methane risk,” she said.

“This issue is unrelated to the incident on 6 May, but all our operations were in compliance at the time of the incident with the regulation and the Mines Inspectorate directive, which clarified the position of a particular gas monitor.

“It would be inappropriate for anyone to speculate about potential links between incidents that have occurred in the past and the methane ignition on 6 May, as there are formal investigations under way into the incident.”

It is understood the Queensland Resources Council has raised concerns with the government about a lack of consultation with industry.

The inspectorate and Anglo American have previously refused to say whether the regulator issued Grosvenor with any directives ordering it to suspend mining operations because of the methane risk.

On Wednesday, as part of widespread mining safety reforms, the inspectorate was effectively shifted out of the state government’s Department of Natural Resources and Mines and into a new independent statutory body, Resources Safety and Health Queensland.

On Thursday afternoon, the inspectorate confirmed for the first time that it had issued directives to suspend operations for an un­acceptable level of risk to Anglo American’s Grosvenor and Grasstree mines on April 8 and April 16.

“Both directives related to regulatory requirements for the positioning of methane gas sensors on the longwall areas of these mines,” the spokeswoman said.

“The requirements of the Grosvenor directive were satisfied on 9 April; Grasstree, on 16 April. These are potentially matters that will be considered by the inquiry.”

CFMEU president Steve Smyth said in his more than 30 years in mining, he’d never seen an underground mine like Grosvenor “with workers fearing for their jobs, and their safety”. “Mining is dangerous by nature, but you can manage the hazards. We should not be having mine explosions in Australia in the 21st century.”