Process Safety Management discussion paper: Application and relevance to mining

Finding 76 of Queensland Coal Mining Board of Inquiry into the serious accident that occurred at the Grosvenor Coal Mine on 6 May 2020 says, “An appropriate focus on catastrophic risk requires consideration of process safety strategies” and recommends that the “industry adopts strategies and performance measures to address process safety and personal safety separately” (Recommendation 18).

The Commissioner for Resources Safety and Health commissioned this discussion paper on process safety, its origins and relevance to the mining industry. This paper seeks to explain what is meant by process safety, assess the approaches currently in place in mining comparable to process safety and identify what might be needed for the mining industry to adopt “process safety strategies.”