Newmont Mining Corporation

Denver, Colorado

At Newmont, commitment to safety starts at the top. Any time a serious mine accident or incident occurs that could have seriously injured an employee or contractor, president and CEO Richard O'Brien wants to know how it happened.

The intent is not to punish those involved, but to better understand the root cause(s) to prevent other similar events from occurring.

When potential fatal occurrences (PFOs) do occur, O'Brien convenes a conference call with the Regional Leadership Team and site personnel involved – including supervisors and business partners. Brian Hill, executive vice president of Operations and Guy Lansdown, executive vice president of Discovery and Development participate in the meeting as well. In 2010, O'Brien dedicated more than 40 hours to related calls.

When a PFO occurred last year at Newmont Waihi Gold, general manager of Operations Glen Grindlay saw firsthand the value of having such a high-level investigation.

The PFO involved a runaway underground loader. The remote loader retrieval hook inadvertently activated, disabling the vehicle's brakes, steering and hydraulic controls. Fortunately, the loader did not run through the nearby workshop, and no one was hurt.

The incident was initially thought to be caused by human error or a device failure. By following the process put in place to investigate the causes of PFOs, the problem was found to be an alteration to the retrieval hook by the equipment manufacturer that was not communicated to the operators.

Reviewing an incident with the CEO can be intimidating, and there was some anxiety among Glen's team going into the PFO call. But Grindlay recalled this discussion was conducted professionally, without assigning blame and with the sole intent of learning from the event.

"I have no doubt that the thoroughness of our investigation was in part due to the pending executive review of the PFO documentation," he said. "It benefitted those on-site to be exposed to such a diligent review process and to the level of commitment to safety that was demonstrated by having Richard on the call."

Newmont's Health, Safety and Loss Prevention team has tracked PFOs for years to identify critical casual factors of high-potential events. At a recent employee Town Hall meeting, O'Brien explained that he and the leadership team believed that getting into the details was important when safety was involved.

"Leadership for safety really emanates from one person at Newmont, and that person is me," he said. "I see these calls as an opportunity to listen and learn. It comes down to creating a culture where we're willing to talk about events openly, learn from them and put what we learn into action. That's the only way to achieve our ultimate goal of no fatalities and no serious injuries at Newmont."

April 18, 2011