JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – International Ferro Metals (IFM) on Monday, in court, reached an agreement with the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR), stipulating that an agreement reached by the parties last week, which allowed IFM to resume its operations following a Section 54 stoppage, remained in force.

This settlement agreement had been made an order of the court.

IFM had suspended production at its two ferrochrome furnaces and pelletiser on Wednesday in response to a Section 54 notice, following a health and safety incident where two employees had been exposed to carbon monoxide (CO) gas.

“Despite strict company procedures and immediate warnings of the personal and static CO monitor alarms, the employees did not evacuate the premises in a timely manner, which resulted in the incident and the reporting thereof to the DMR,” IFM said in a statement, adding that two affected employees had made a full recovery.

IFM stated that it had immediately started implementing the requirements of the notice, after which a settlement agreement had been reached with the State Attorney and the DMR to suspend the notice on certain conditions.

Based on this settlement agreement, operations were restarted on Friday evening, with critical retraining required by the imposition of the notice having been completed, IFM said.

However, on November 22, the company was advised that the DMR had withdrawn the settlement agreement reached on Friday.

To this effect, the DMR served the company with court papers on Saturday evening, suggesting that certain requirements had not been met.

This matter was argued in court on Monday.

IFM stated that it was confident that it had complied with both the Section 54 notice and the settlement agreement reached on Friday, adding that it would, on Tuesday, make a presentation to the principal inspector of mines to demonstrate this.

In the event that the DMR was of the opinion that the company had not complied with the conditions, the matter would proceed in court on Wednesday, November 26.

IFM said its furnaces remained in operation and continued to ramp up.

“Furnace 1 is expected to reach normal production by November 27; however, Furnace 2 is only expected to achieve similar levels of production by the end of November,” IFM said, adding that, management continued to assess the full impact of the suspension.