(32ba) Customized Tool Development for Event Priorization in Mining Industry

Risk Management in the mining industry has historically been focused on controlling the risks of workplace accidents and the health effects for workers in the activities they have been involved and environmental effects properly of this type of activity entails during the useful life of mineral extraction.

When the 2019 huge event in Brazil (the rupture of a waste dam) happened, Mining industry showed its potential to materialize catastrophic events with devastating effects over Community. This fact was publicly and globally noted. As result and lesson from that event, some strategies for risk management were developed to control those type of unwanted events, using international references in associations of the mining industry, as well as international known standards regarding the Process Safety Management system.

Despite there were great advances in regulations, strategies and criteria to achieve a management model, a process safety system from chemical industry has challenge to be implemented in mining industry due the nature of activities, besides the absence of case studies, references to historical events, failure records, among others type of information that is common and very useful in the chemical and oil industries mainly. So, own risk management models were developed and adjusted for mining reality.

The most common Risk Management Model in the mining industry is the management through critical controls and risk management by layers protection. Both models were initially developed considering European experience, and they start with Hazards Identification Strategy and subsequent prioritization of unwanted events as priority. This process in mining industry has a strong dependence on the judgment of the experts, and the opinion of the participants in risk studies, filling the qualitative risks studies with marked influence in the perception and paradigms of the study participants, with no reference available.

Prioritizing which risk scenarios should be candidates for Major Event Risk Management has become a challenge, and even greater is knowing when it might no longer be a priority and whether the controls applied really contribute to effective control of the identified risks, or what would be the improvements to implement. It is necessary to answer questions such as: is this risk a priority to be addressed as a major event? Are the control measures or critical controls sufficient to keep these scenarios in control?

These responses are necessary to make a decision that is adjusted to the reality of the organization and that allows establishing priorities based on the levels of acceptance of particular risks.

The RSE Consultoria developed a tool for a mining company located in Brazil that allows establishing the level of inherent and residual risk, considering the characteristics of each activity, the damage that can be generated in each one of the dimensions defined by the organization, as well as the consideration of the control barriers defined through bow tie diagrams that were raised, identifying their hierarchy, effectiveness and reliability with the results of the verification of controls within the framework of the critical controls management models.

This is the basis of current risk management models in the mining industry: which risks should be treated as a priority and how this is possible.

In developing phases, 3 steps were followed:

• Company Risk Management Flow - understanding of each of the stages that follow for risk prioritization, as well as the flow for subsequent treatment of the current form of prioritization;
• Safety barrier/critical controls strategy development policy – know how the selection of critical controls is developed, how the effectiveness of this strategy is evaluated as well as the type of resulting controls;
• Treatment of already identified risks – know the flow of establishing responsibilities and the relevance of the study for the promotion of improvements in Risk Management by the operational areas and other managements involved.

Finally, evaluation parameters were developed with defined criteria based on international regulations and recognized good practices in other industries, risk assessment human reliability methodology and other relevant strategies for main industries, as well ICMM and G-MIRM standards. The parameterization of each item evaluated in the tool to be established, the qualitative criteria and their quantitative references regarding the relevance of each item.

Although the tool is presented in a simplified way to help its understanding, it even includes a parameterization process for all the variables that are included in a qualitative risk analysis process, allowing organizations to evaluate risk levels at a lower level. degree of subjectivity, since it considers for each parameter a set of options that are discussed but there is no way to keep a record. The tool does not seek any way to replace traditional risk analysis methods, but it synthesizes risk management in a spreadsheet and allows guidance on actions subsequent to risk analysis.