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QUEENSLAND thermal coal miner New Hope has scaled back production and initiated job cuts at its Jeebropilly open cut mine, in what economists have interpreted as a further indication of the deteriorating nature of Australia’s coal industry. The latest casualty of the market slump, the Jeebropilly thermal coal mine in Amberley, Queensland, is undergoing what New Hope terms “strategic downsizing” in response to the extenuating high costs of the current market conditions, compounded by the current weakness of commodity prices. The move was announced by the company in a recent quarterly activities report, stating that since April, Jeebropilly in which it had operated five days per week instead of six as a direct strategy to reduce costs. New Hope justified…

INDUSTRIAL instability and violence in South Africa’s platinum mining industry continue to threaten the country’s economy, after 4000 mine workers engaged in a ‘sit-in strike’ at Anglo-American’s Thembelani mine. As trade union representatives met with government officials to draft a framework for a sustainable platinum industry several thousand platinum workers went on strike, refusing to exit an underground mine owned by the world’s largest primary platinum producer, in protest of the suspension of four of its leaders from the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU). The union leaders were allegedly suspended for presenting fraudulent membership applications to boost membership numbers. The AMCU is central to a bitter union rivalry against the National Union of Mineworkers, as both unions struggle…

MENTAL health groups are calling for cultural and organisational change in employer training and employee support for fly in, fly out (FIFO) and drive in, drive out (DIDO) workers, after one of Australia’s largest ever FIFO-DIDO mental health studies highlighted the potentially harmful psychological and lifestyle stressors of this unique working arrangement. The study found there was a stigma attached to mental health problems in the FIFO-DIDO work culture, which inhibited employee’s acknowledgment of a problem and was one of three major barriers to employees seeking help. Compounding this problem was an underlying lack of support services and employer training, along with a general lack of employee knowledge of the services available. In a collaborative research project designed by suicide-prevention…

MINERALS powerhouse Rio Tinto is reportedly planning to sell off billions of dollars in thermal coal mine assets from two of its central Queensland sites, as well as its NSW-based Coal and Allied, via global finance company Deutsche Bank. Sales are speculated to fetch about $2.8 billion for the British-Australian metals and mining corporation, with the company seeking a buyer for up to 29 per cent of its Coal and Allied unit, to cut costs and boost shareholder returns. Deutsche Bank is also reportedly selling Rio Tinto’s interests in the Clermont and Blair Athol thermal coal mines in Queensland, which could fetch more than $1billion. News of the sale broke via an unnamed executive reporting to the Wall Street Journal,…