Dual-listed Sibanye-Stillwater said last week that its South African gold operations achieved seven-million fatality-free shifts during the six months ended June 30.

Its South African platinum group metals (PGMs) operations reported two fatal incidents during the six months.

This is a stark improvement from the 21 fatalities groupwide that were reported for the first half of 2018.

This commendable improvement in safety, CEO Neal Froneman said, was achieved in spite of disruptions associated with the extended strike at its gold operations, and the heightened risks of resuming production from workplaces that were dormant for more than five months.

The South African PGMs operations, meanwhile, achieved 1.4-million fatality-free shifts before the second fatality in June, and closed the first half of the year on 445 000 fatality-free shifts, compared with the 2.1-million at the end of the first half of 2018.

Trade union Solidarity welcomed Sibanye’s achievement of safe production in its gold segment, with Solidarity general secretary Gideon du Plessis adding that such an achievement “can only be accomplished through all shouldering their responsibility for health, safety and teamwork”.

Solidarity said it was confident Sibanye’s safety leadership had improved the safety culture at Sibanye’s South African operations and that this had made all the difference in achieving this milestone.

The union, however, warned the miner against complacency and urged it to continue to be safety conscious so that every employee was able to return home safely to his or her family every day.
“The real test of your safety culture and commitment now comes with maintaining this achievement and with the further reduction in accidents and injuries,” Du Plessis said.

Meanwhile, in the US, Sibanye’s PGMs operations started the year poorly, with 28% of reportable injuries over the six months having occurred in January.

Nevertheless, the total reportable injury frequency rate for the US PGMs operations improved from 18.2 in 2018 to 16.8 for the first six months of this year.

As part of the miner’s continued focus on safe production, Sibanye’s “real risk reduction” initiatives were ongoing, while its safe production leadership and culture intervention remained on track, the miner said.