From left to right: Christian Goulet, Mine General Superintendent LaRonde, Louis Duval, Mine Superintendent Lapa, Joel Provencher, H&S Superintendent Lapa, Ricky Phillips, General Supervisor Maintenance Lapa, Jeff Leclair, Instrumentation Technician Lapa and member of HSC.
Agnico Eagle’s Lapa mine was recognized with the 2015 F.J. O’Connell award for excellence in safety performance by the Quebec Mining Association.
The awards are presented annually to mining companies in Quebec that have demonstrated strong safety performance and also achieved noticeable improvements.
This year Lapa took home the top prize in the category of “Underground Operations” for companies with less than 400,000 hours worked in a year.
The F.J. O’Connell awards are named after Francis Joseph O’Connell, a former Quebec mine manager who was renowned for his concern for the safety of his employees – so much so that after his death in 1966, the mining industry came together to establish an annual award in his name.
"In 2015, we achieved a combined lost-time accident and restricted work frequency rate of 3.32. This is an improvement of 48% compared to the previous year and also the lowest we have ever recorded since the start of production at the Lapa mine," said Joël Provencher, Superintendent, Health and Safety at Lapa. “And, 2015 was also a record safety performance year for the entire company with an overall combined frequency rate of 1.23.”
There are a number of key factors which have helped Lapa and Agnico Eagle achieve this success. One of those is unquestionably our implementation of the Responsible Mining Management System (RMMS) which has helped us integrate the overall management of our health and safety, environmental and community relations performance. Based on the identification and management of risks, this system enables us to implement specific measures and actions to continually improve and work towards achieving our target of zero accidents across all Agnico Eagle sites.
"We believe it is possible to prevent all accidents by working together,” said Christian Goulet, Mine General Superintendent LaRonde.
Safety will always be a core value of our company and we know it is important to maintain the highest safety standards for the well-being of our employees, contractors and surrounding communities.
Congratulations to all Lapa employees on this great achievement!