In the height of the Australian summer, a gold mine in remote Western Australia was confronted with the unthinkable. A gas plant had tripped, halving supply and instantly shutting down part of the mine site. To make matters worse, the disruption was expected to last two days, diminishing production at a mine that typically produces more than 11 tonnes of gold a year.
Maintaining operational continuity
With no control over external supply continuity, the company had to rapidly exercise levers within its power to minimise the operational impact of a gas shortfall. There was no time to waste: every minute was costing the enterprise money. Event activation on the emqnet crisis management platform was immediate, and within five minutes a team of 10 key personnel was notified and assembled. Their primary concern? How to shield the core operations of the business from a major supply disruption. Fortunately, they had at the ready their Trigger Action Response Plan (TARP) – a crisis management blueprint for overcoming the most severe threats to operational continuity.
Plan for prosperity
The TARP was tried and tested. In the four months before the gas disruption event, the enterprise had undertaken two training sessions to put their crisis response framework to the test. This resilience-building exercise meant that when faced with a real-life event, personnel could act quickly and decisively. Their first task was to shut down any non-essential energy use so that power could be diverted to core mining operations. The crisis management team then had to investigate alternative fuel sources and suppliers, liaising with the Australian Energy Market Operator and other stakeholders to shore up reserves. While output was affected, the enterprise succeeded in mitigating productivity loss, and within six days normal operations had resumed and the incident was closed on emqnet.
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