Anglo American CEO Duncan Wanblad
Mining major Anglo American has achieved its lowest ever total recordable injury frequency rate of 1.78 in 2023, down from 2.19 in 2022, along with the company’s lowest ever monthly rate of 0.91 in December, CEO Duncan Wanblad revealed during the company’s 2023 financial year results presentation on February 22.
Despite these achievements, three workers – out of more than 100 000 employees globally – were killed during the year in two separate incidents in Chile and South Africa.
“With those fatalities and the other accidents that we've had during the year, we know that we have more work to do. I'm very enthusiastically positive about the journey and the progress we are making, but it is never going to be enough, and it's never going to be okay, until there are zero injuries, and certainly zero fatalities,” Wanblad said.
He added that the improvement in the company’s safety record was an important indicator for the company in terms of how it was performing in terms of operational excellence.
“It really does give me much deeper confidence in how we are improving our underlying operational capabilities. If the production is stable, the safety is likely to be improved.
“And I think the indicators in terms of our safety performance are now starting to give us a clue that production is starting to become a little bit more stable. So these are good foundations, but there is more work to do to improve it,” Wanblad said.