Modern Mining May 2024

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Under the guiding vision of ‘Pioneering a Brilliant Future for Venetia Mine’, a commitment was made to the principle of ‘safe production’ – rather than separating out the functions of ‘safety’ and ‘production’.

‘Safe production’ ethos earns Venetia 10 million fatality-free shifts Having reached 10,2 million Fatality Free shifts by the end of December 2023, the innova tive safety efforts of De Beers’ Venetia Mine are certainly bearing fruit.

O ver the past few years, in particular, a bold new approach has been pursued, accord ing to Gavin Anderson, Senior Manager for Safety and Sustainable Development at De Beers’ Venetia Mine. “The journey is far from over and has been chartered through challenging condi tions,” explains Anderson, “but there is already much that can be constructively learned by other mines.” The operational context is the ambitious Venetia Underground Project (VUP), which began in 2012 to transition Venetia from 30 years of open pit mining into an underground operation. “With the transition of employees from open pit work to the underground environment, we needed a completely different safety approach,” he says. “The transition shaped our journey not only from a safety perspective but across all activity on the mine.” Under the guiding vision of ‘Pioneering a Brilliant Future for Venetia Mine’, a commitment was made to the principle of ‘safe production’ – rather than sepa rating out the functions of ‘safety’ and ‘production’. “The transition of employees’ skills and working environment was further complicated by the num bers of contractors on site, which brought significant diversity in working culture and company back grounds,” he says. This challenging task was underpinned by a

comprehensive risk management programme – but there was a difference: instead of focusing on safety risk, the decision was made to take everyone on a personal journey towards safely creating one Venetia Mine. “We developed our own cutting edge holistic approach in terms of understanding what we believe operational risk management to be,” he says. “We incorporated safety, occupational health, environ mental care, social and community aspects, legal and regulatory requirements, business risks, and reputational risk.”

Gavin Anderson, Senior Manager for Safety and Sustainable Development at De Beers Venetia. Venetia Mine Safety Team Leaders pose at the company’s annual Global Safety Day; from left Thomas van Wyk, Safety Manager, Pheonah Salani, Safety Assurance Specialist and Peter Wells, Chief Safety Officer at De Beers Venetia.

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May 2024  MODERN MINING  29