Solid Energy says Spring Creek miners never at risk

Solid Energy has stopped underground mining at its Spring Creek Mine, near Greymouth. Photo / File photo / Greg Bowker

Solid Energy says its staff at Spring Creek Mine, near Greymouth, were never at risk despite the Department of Labour shutting down operations at the mine following three recent incidents.

The department issued a prohibition notice to the company for failing to report a recent event and not taking active steps to resolve two others.

Acting chief mines inspector Gavin Taylor said that over the past three weeks, a diesel generator caught fire and injected high concentrations of carbon monoxide into the mine; one of the main fans tripped with no alert to management for 90 minutes; and an underground auxiliary fan tripped on two consecutive days but did not, as it should have, stop production at the mine.

"Members of my team met Solid Energy morning and they determined the events represented failures in management processes. The inspectors were very concerned that the issues had not been fully investigated, yet production had continued,'' he said.

Solid Energy chief operating officer Barry Bragg told Radio New Zealand this morning his staff were never at risk.

"Our first control failed but we had other controls in place to ensure our staff were safe and we're comfortable about that, but we're running investigations about why the first control failed.''

However, he acknowledged there were "gaps'' in the mine's management and reporting systems, as identified in a mine safety audit year.

"We're not happy about that but we're moving to fix them.''

Bragg said that the generator never actually caught fire, as the department reported.

"It wasn't a fire underground, it was surface compressor that overheated and led to a lot of smoke and some of that smoke got into our air compression system and that's what the mine inspector was referring to. We have multiple controls in place to manage that event and we believe we managed it correctly.''

Solid Energy is expected to meet the department later today.

The Department said the prohibition notice would be lifted only when Solid Energy had provided an explanation of the events; a thorough investigation has been carried out; and engineering controls and management systems have been changed to prevent further issues.

Spring Creek employs about 230 mineworkers, tradespeople and professional specialists, with about 40 people working underground at any given time.

Last week the Department of Labour closed down a Coromandel Peninsula gold mine for failing to comply with mining regulations.

Broken Hills, a small underground gold mine operating on conservation land near Puketui, was closed after failing to meet an improvement notice.