MINING MONTHLY AWARDS

Productive excellence

WITH an electrical team going 27 years without a lost time injury and boasting the best operating draglines in Anglo American’s fleet, the Capcoal surface operations believe they have what it takes to win <i>Australia’s Mining Monthly</i>’s Operational Excellence award.

Noel Dyson
Capcoal's draglines are rated the best in the entire Anglo American fleet.

Capcoal's draglines are rated the best in the entire Anglo American fleet.

The Operational Excellence category is part of the AMM Awards in association with Komatsu.

Capcoal is made up of two open-cut mines, Lake Lindsay and Oak Park, which produce quality hard coking coal for export steel markets.

The entire site has 412 days Medical Treatment Case free, and 522 days LTI free as of December 14 2017. 

Also, sections in the workforce have gone many years LTI free, with the electrical team more than 27 years without an LTI. 

There are many other workgroups onsite with similar LTI free performance.

According to Anglo American, the onsite workforce is empowered to make clear safety go or no-go decisions, and the culture is very much one of "my brother's keeper, my sister's keeper". 

"There is a distinct small family feel to Capcoal Surface," it said.

"Further, this safety performance has been achieved during a challenging period of industrial unease, which was resolved successfully between all parties with the ratification of two enterprise agreements on the site in 2017. Safety was never compromised."

The Capcoal workforce has a mantra of "Chronic Unease", which means never being complacent and always thinking about "what could go wrong?"

On the back of this safety performance, the site also has the best operating draglines and excavator fleets within the entire Anglo American world-wide business. 

Productivity has been achieved through focus and determination, and never at the expense of safety.

Despite the best efforts of Tropical Cyclone Debbie, Capcoal surface was able to recover from the damage, and achieved 105% prime, 107% run-of-mine, and 100% saleable production against its year to date targets.

Capcoal also plays an important role in the township of Middlemount supporting community events and assisting with the provision of important services. 

In recent years, Capcoal completed a $2.6 million upgrade of shopping centre facilities and invested $25 million to upgrade 100 homes.

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