Page 20 - pd285-Aug20-mag-web_Neat

coVeR

West African Resources poured first gold from its Sanbrado mine in Burkina Faso in March. Built by
Lycopodium and mined by AMS, the mine saw no material impact from COVID up to July

taskforce was quickly established to un- it is about social distancing protocols and nances and liquidity and a broad strategy
derstand the impact on our staff, local ensuring systems are in place.” for the long term.”
communities and the business.” Perenti Global Ltd has two major min- There was also a coordinated response
Lycopodium is one of Africa’s leading ing contractor divisions on the continent. from industry involving miners, explorers,
project builders with construction and Managing director Mark Norwell said the service companies and the Australian-Af-
study work spanning the continent. De company had benefitted from its Ebola rican Mining & Energy Group (AAMEG).
Leo said the spread of jurisdictions re- experience. “At the start of this we set up an indus-
quired differing approaches. “In Africa we are perhaps more resilient try-wide telephone call and had about
“South Africa for instance, where we as a result of having to deal with Ebola 20-30 people on the first call which in-
have a big office, went into lockdown and other diseases such as malaria for a cluded some of the CEOs of the bigger
very quickly so we had to adjust,” he said. number of years. We established proto- companies. AAMEG took over that role
“From a site perspective, the challenges cols during the Ebola crisis around social and I think what has been established is
at Yaoure [Perseus’ newest gold mine distancing, sanitation, etc. We have dust- a mindset of cooperation across the in-
in Cote d’Ivoire] are very different to our ed them off and put them into practices dustry,” Barnes said.
work with Rio Tinto [Ltd] on the Western again. So, we are used to dealing with Once onsite health and well-being
Syncline project in Western Australia. The challenges and adapting very quickly. protocols were established, the next
health and wellbeing of the workforce is “At the start of the pandemic, we es- task was to ensure employees could be
paramount at both but there are logistical tablished a taskforce across the Perenti safely moved, particularly those working
issues around charters and cross-border group focused on five areas; people, op- away from home. These people logistics
movement in Cote d’Ivoire whereas in WA erational continuity, supply chains, fi- were particularly challenging for contrac-

Page 20 aUgUST 2020 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT