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range of considerations and there are
so many moving parts,” he said. “We are
looking at the travel bans and how they
apply to FIFO workers. For instance, the
WA industry has a lot of employees who
live or visit South East Asia between
swings and much of Tasmania’s mining
workforce is FIFO from Victoria and New
South Wales.”
Above all, Reid said, miners were fo-
cused on their ability to act to protect
employees in the face of a coronavirus
outbreak among their workforce.
“The priority at the moment and con-
cern from members is what to do in order
that they have the lowest risk possible,”
he said. “It is a question of if you do have
a suspected case in the workforce how
do you manage and deal and what is re-
quired from the company and from gov-
ernment. It is a big concern, especially
as there are so many moving parts with Paul Everingham
regards this industry.”
Despite the concerns, Reid believes “All the energy is going into establishing
all the proper protocols and procedures
the mining industry is well equipped to and implementing, enforcing and carrying Economic
tackle the crisis.
“We do have an advantage in that often them out,” Everingham said. “We have
made certain commitments to the State
we know where people are coming from Government, such as increasing swings side-effects
when they arrive on remote sites and we
are very good at monitoring that,” he said. to two weeks to limit unnecessary move-
Everingham agreed. ment within the State.” While the public health
“The resources sector is populated with BHP Ltd has reacted to the crisis with emergency has been
very clever people who are very good at a pledge to employ 1,400 additional staff
mapping pathways to continue us to en- during a time when other industries are paramount, the various social
able production in this distressed envi- forced to lay many workers off. restrictions and lockdowns are
ronment,” he said. “Miners are very good “It was very encouraging to see all
planners and organisers and very good companies participating in the roundtable having a coruscating effect on
at creating big system programmes and committed to a working on a unified in- the global and local economy.
implementing them.” dustry response and some have already
Reid also praised the willingness of set aside funding to take on new workers,”
companies throughout the mining and oil Pitt said following the roundtable. he carnage on markets was obvious,
and gas sectors to share information and While Australian operations have been Twith no sector spared. The ASX200
strategy around coronavirus manage- exempted from restrictions, exploration lost more than 33% of its value inside a
ment. projects and international mines have month after hitting 7160 points on Febru-
“The information sharing has been been severely affected. ary 20.
fantastic. There has been an openness The Northern Territory’s efforts to pre- Given that China was the epicentre of
across employers. They understand we vent the virus spreading through vulner- the outbreak, the resultant lockdown de-
are all in this together and the most effec- able indigenous communities has seen cisively put the brakes on industrial out-
tive way to combat it is to be collaborative exploration in the jurisdiction curtailed put. This led to big commodity price falls
and frequently in communication.” with Newmont Corp the largest explorer with iron ore and the base metals the big-
Companies have been understandably to halt work. gest losers. Gold, so often a safe haven
cautious about releasing exact details of Internationally, companies have react- in such times, was also hammered.
the measures they are taking. However, ed to more stringent government restric- PCF Capital managing director Liam
several industry insiders have revealed tions. In Canada, Kirkland Lake Gold Inc Twigger said the effect was likely com-
to Paydirt practices which include body said it would reduce activity at its newly pounded by global equity markets’ recent
temperature checks before entering acquired Detour Lake gold mine. While performance.
worksites, restrictions, bans on non- the mill would continue to process re- “I think the global equity markets were
essential business travel and visitors to duced feed from the open pit and stock- completely over valued and a major pull
site, cancelling training, conference and piles, most additional work has been sus- back was to be expected anyway,” Twig-
other mass gatherings and more rigorous pended. ger told Paydirt. “The markets had al-
hygiene practices. On social distancing, Major mining countries including South ready built in every bit of upside with the
many companies are changing, stagger- Africa, Peru and Brazil have placed re- earnings multiples and interest rates. It
ing and splitting rosters, work-from-home strictions on the industry with miners fall- only needed one event to deflate every-
arrangements and limits to toolbox talks ing into line. thing, but no one could have contemplat-
and shift handovers. ed it being something like this.”

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