April 2008

From the Managing Director

Safety

Firstly, congratulations to everyone for maintaining your focus on safety, particularly during recent challenging weather events. We have had a solid start to the year in safety with Blair Athol, Hail Creek and Bengalla all without a reportable injury in January and February. This is a particularly good result given the extreme weather conditions experienced across all the sites this summer.   
 

Teamwork and creative cooperation

Teamwork and collaboration are two of the key drivers which are helping RTCA maintain its position as an industry leader. I am most encouraged to note that there have been numerous recent examples of these important qualities across our organisation. Last year our New South Wales sites were severely impacted by the June floods and early in 2008 it was our Queensland operations that were affected.
 
There is a saying 'from adversity comes strength'. In RTCA's case, mutual support, collaboration and teamwork have flourished. I am very proud of the creativity and cooperation that has occurred between the coal chain teams, the marketing teams and the Queensland sites.

This creative work has uncovered opportunities, including achieving some coal railings to Abbott Point, and additional railings from Blair Athol to Gladstone.
These additional railings have offset temporary reductions from Hail Creek and taken advantage of excess railing capacity. Some of our production has been sold at attractive prices, which is helping off-set some of the very high cost impacts that we have had to deal with after the floods.

In another show of collaboration and support, Blair Athol sent pumps to Hail Creek to assist them when monsoonal rains caused problems in February. Additionally, last month Blair Athol broke its 2003 record for the weekly total coal crush - achieving a record 354,045 tonnes of coal crushed, beating the previous record set five years ago by 17,291 tonnes. Blair Athol also railed a total of 381,719 tonnes of coal in a single week - the second highest volume of coal ever railed from that mine. Most importantly, this was all achieved without injury to a single person.
 

Flood update

Congratulations to all employees for your continuing hard work during the post-floods clean-up. Blair Athol Mine is mining coal and performing strongly with above-normal rates of production. Kestrel Mine is also producing coal, and was ramping up production levels during March. Hail Creek Mine - the only RTCA mine to declare Force Majeure after the February rains - was dewatering the pit last month at a rate of 60 million litres a day. Force Majeure has now been lifted.
 
In New South Wales, coal availability has been very tight due to unusually high rainfall for the first few months of this year. Heavy rains have had some impact on Coal & Allied operations, however all Coal & Allied Port Waratah Coal Services port entitlement has been used.
 

ABS

Aligning Business Systems (ABS) training participation rates have been high, and I would like to remind everyone how important it is that you keep these levels up. ABS is certainly a large change for all of us and one that will provide us with an important business tool. I encourage you to keep up your training and attend all sessions relevant to your role, so that you understand how to use the new system