The Ministry of Energy and Minerals yesterday held a health and safety forum to address safety concerns within the mining sector. The event was held in collaboration with Oman Energy Association (OPAL).
Mohsin Hamad al Hadhrami, Under-Secretary of The Ministry of Energy and Minerals, shared the following, "HSE in any sector is very critical for the health of any sector. The measure of the success of any sector depends heavily on the HSE environment that we set. That was proven in the oil and gas sector, and that is why it is very important for us to take lessons from the oil and gas sector into the mining sector, and to prepare the leadership of the mining sector to be prepared for the challenges and opportunities in the mining sector in regards to improving the HSE sector."
Humaid al Bulushi, General Manager of HSE and Standardisation at OPAL, stated: “The event today is a very critical event; it is a start of a new journey on safe leadership in mining. The first mining leaders' forum is mainly to focus on the transformation of safety leadership and the HSE management systems applied within the mining sector. All the leaders in the room will be key partners to move up the standardization of HSE practices within the mining sector.”
The forum will also witness the development of a health and safety roadmap to achieve zero harm by 2030.
“The mining sector overall is very critical to the country, especially its economy and the leaders here today are the main people who can drive the change. Their presence and participation today are very important to setting up the roadmap for the 2030 mining HSE plan. So, we are going to develop a 2030 plan today, as an [initial] draft.” Furthermore, al Bulushi believes that effective health and safety procedures within the industry can boost economy.
“It has been demonstrated that businesses with strong HSE management systems are very good at managing costs, performance, and productivity. So, if you have a strong and robust HSE management system with strong safety leadership across [ establishments], that will ease up everything ... the waste will be removed, the cost will be reduced, the productivity will go up and that overall will have a very positive impact on the economy” he shared.
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Energy and Minerals signed the first mining agreement with a foreign investor to extract nickel and its derivatives, with initial investments estimated at $25 - $30 million.
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