Safety, top miners cautious about industry future

Employee safety, managing capital projects and maximizing production effectiveness are the top priorities of today’s mining executives.

The 2012 Worldwide Mining Survey analyzed new trends and shifting attitudes around workforces, capital investments and technology and purports to represent the views of 374 mining companies.

The results indicate that ensuring workforce safety is the top priority for the second time in three years, with 31% of respondents saying so.

Instead of developing new sites, mining companies are currently favoring the expansion of existing operations. In addition, 21% of executives surveyed gave precedence to maximizing production effectiveness.

The study also demonstrates that mining executives closely correlate worker safety and mine productivity. When asked to identify their primary safety initiatives, nearly two-thirds or 64% of respondents selected “development of skills, best work practices and situation-based decision making.”