Rio Tinto expresses its gratitude to search crews for locating missing capsule
February 01 2023 - 3:40AM
Business Wire
Rio Tinto expresses its gratitude to the Western Australia’s
Department of Fire and Emergency Services for coordinating the
successful search effort to locate a missing capsule lost while in
transit from the company’s Gudai-Darri iron ore mine in the
Pilbara, Western Australia.
Rio Tinto would also like to thank the specialist search crews
from the Australian Defence Force, the Australian Radiation
Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency and the Australian Nuclear
Science and Technology Organisation, as well as all other support
agencies, for their crucial role in the search and recovery
efforts.
Rio Tinto Iron Ore Chief Executive Simon Trott said, “We are
incredibly grateful for the hard work of everyone involved in
finding the missing capsule.
“While the recovery of the capsule is a great testament to the
skill and tenacity of the search team, the fact is it should never
have been lost in the first place. I’d like to apologise to the
wider community of Western Australia for the concern it has
generated.
“We are taking this incident very seriously and are undertaking
a full and thorough investigation into how it happened.
“This sort of incident is extremely rare in our industry, which
is why we need to investigate it thoroughly and learn what we can
to ensure it doesn’t happen again. As part of our investigation, we
will be assessing whether our processes and protocols, including
the use of specialist contractors to package and transport
radioactive materials, are appropriate.”
Notes to editors
The device involved is an industrial gauge which is commonly
used in the mining industry. In this instance it was being used at
our Gudai-Darri mine site to measure iron ore feed in the crushing
circuit of the fixed plant.
The capsule is small (6mm diameter, 8mm long), round and
stainless steel, and forms part of a level sensor (gauge) that is
used in some fixed plant assets.
The gauge, packed by a specialist radioactive materials handler,
was collected by a transport contractor from the Gudai-Darri mine
site on 12 January.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230201005476/en/
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