The role of the CAU with the Resources Regulator, coal industry overview, communication of incidents, case studies

1. Steve Bentham CAU
11th September 2019
CAU: The Trends & Areas of Focus

2. CAU – Central Assessment Unit - Recap
All mines are to notify ‘Immediately’ 24/7 via the 1300 814 609
• The death of a person
• A serious injury or illness of a person under cl 178
• A dangerous incident under cl 179
• Loss, stolen, attempted theft or suspicious incident threatening the security of the
explosive cl 102 (explosives)
• A serious incident under clause 103 (explosives)
• Nothing has changed here
All mine operators are to notify Cl 128 high potential incidents
• As soon as reasonably practicable after becoming aware of the incident via the on-
line form (Portal).

3. NSW Coal industry incident overview – 2018-19
• Incident reported 2018 – 2019
• Critical - 2
• Severe - 6
• Elevated - 158
• Standard – 428
• Monitoring – 999
• The regulator has a criteria based
procedure that triages the incident
classification

4. Incident that inspectors were deployed 2018-19
• Not all incidents are responded to
• Inspectors were deployed to 109
incidents
• For the balance of elevated and
standard type incidents 686
desktop assessment were
completed by inspectors
• An inspector reviewed the information
provided by the mine
• Some incidents may have an inspector
complete a follow up site assessment

5. Communication of incidents
• Weekly incident summaries, safety
alerts, safety bullets, investigation
reports are published
• Many incidents are a repeat of
incidents that have happened
before
• Many incidents have the same
causal factors leading up to them
• See which of the two case studies
you can relate to

6. Case Study One – Potential fall of excavator
over Highwall SA18-13
• The excavator was pulling a poly
pipe along a high wall edge
• The work scope was changed from
the original plan
• The mine supervisor had not
authorised the change of work
scope
• There was no edge bunding on the
highwall
• The excavator slumped over the
edge

7. Case Study 1 - Potential fall of excavator over
Highwall SA18-13
• The operator got out of the cabin
• The service leading hand (LH)
disconnected the poly pipe from the
excavator
• The LH got into the excavator cabin
and rotated the machine to secure
the bucket into the ground.
• Rotating the excavator significantly
increased the potential of the
machine falling over the highwall

8. Case study 1 – Findings
• The risk management
arrangements did not identify the
hazard and effective risk controls to
prevent the incident
• Supervisory and team leader
communications arraignments
failed to adequately respond and
approve altered work tasks
• It appeared that normalisation of
risk of working near highwall edge
20 Mts

9. Case Study Two - Worker injured releasing
jammed Conveyor chain IIR19-03
• Workers were in the process of
inspecting a previously jammed AFC
chain
• Other shifts had worked on freeing the
chain
• The tailgate slow runners was out of
service
• Larger towing equipment was provided
• The Longwall shearer was to be used
to assist the MG slow to carry out the
chain inspection
35 ton bow
shackle

10. Case study two – design of the lateral load transfer system
AFC
8 tonne capacity Rudd link
Design = 8 t x 4 FOS = 32 tonne yield
42mm Amsteel blue rope
Design = 139 tonne yield
Two Kevlar tow strops in parallel
50 tonne yield each
Hook on end of each tow strop
Connected to AFC chain linkages
Design = 2 x 50t = 100 tonne yield
(approx)
Shearer tractive effort
Design = 56.4 tonne
35 tonne bow shackle
Design = 35t x 6 FOS = 210 tonne yield
Load
Lateral shift

11. 2 x 50 tonne tow strops
2 x 50t = 100 tonne yield
(approx.)
Connected to AFC chain
AFC chain
42mm Amsteel
blue rope
139 t yield
35 tonne bow
shackle
35t x 6 FOS
= 210 tonne yield
8 tonne capacity
Rudd link
8 t x 4 FOS
= 32 tonne yield
Load
100 t 139 t 210 t 32 t
Pull
Force
56 t
Case study two – Factor Of Safety (FOS) yield design calculation
Weakest
link
in
system

12. Finding – 8t Rud Link connection point was the
weakest link and not used for what it was intended

13. Findings
• JSA that had previously been created (N/S) was not used by (D/S)
• The N/S crew used a smaller diameter Amsteel rope that had failed and was not
reported or investigated
• The pervious D/S crew had also had a nip chain failure, again this was not
reported or investigated
• The workers carrying out the inspection of the AFC chain did not know the
tractive effort (force) of the shearer
• The 8t Rud Link was the weakest link and was being used out side of what it was
designed for. The Rud link was not authorised by Snr management
• The workers involved in the task had not completed training in underground lifting
and slinging or given adequate information or instruction for the task

14. CAU – Areas of Focus
• We have the tools – ACES 2
• We have the people – CAU team
• We have the data – Incidents
• This allow the CAU provide real
time trend analysis to the regulator
• To ensure that our compliance
priorities are being meet

15. Thank you
Questions at the end of the session
CAU – 1300 814609
cau@planning.nsw.gov.au