JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – International Ferro Metals (IFM) would on Monday appear in court in relation to a claim by the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) that the ferrochrome producer had not met all the requirements of a Section 54 notice issued to it last week.
IFM said it had suspended production at its two ferrochrome furnaces and pelletiser on Wednesday in response to a Section 54 notice, following a health and safety incident where two employees had been exposed to carbon monoxide (CO) gas.
“Despite strict company procedures and immediate warnings of the personal and static CO monitor alarms, the employees did not evacuate the premises in a timely manner, which resulted in the incident and the reporting thereof to the DMR,” IFM said, adding that two affected employees had made a full recovery.
IFM stated that it had immediately started implementing the requirements of the notice, after which a settlement agreement had been reached with the State Attorney and the DMR to suspend the notice on certain conditions.
Based on this settlement agreement, operations were restarted on Friday evening, with critical retraining required by the imposition of the notice having been completed, IFM said.
However, on the morning of Saturday, November 22, the company was advised that the DMR had withdrawn the settlement agreement reached on Friday.
To this effect, the DMR served the company with court papers on Saturday evening, suggesting that certain requirements had not been met. This matter was due in court on Monday, but IFM reiterated that it believed that it had met all the requirements of both the Section 54 notice and the settlement agreement reached on Friday.
IFM said that its furnaces remained in operation and continued to ramp up.
“Furnace 1 is expected to reach normal production by November 27; however, Furnace 2 is only expected to achieve similar levels of production by the end of November,” IFM said, adding that, as a result of the latest sequence of events, the full extent of the stoppage had not yet been quantified.