The Rotary Club of Muswellbrook have added Community Connect Evenings to their calendar, with the first one taking place last week.
They hope to introduce new people to what Rotary is all about, as well as inviting along relevant guest speakers to address their members and guests.
The first speaker was Liz Watts, BHP’s vice president of New South Wales Energy Coal, who provided an update on Mount Arthur Coal.
One of the topics discussed is the modification to their mining approval that is being sought to extend the mining operation from 2026 to 2030.
“This concept of running through to 2030 (is) to provide the additional time to enable an outcome that enables transition to the workforce, but also to come up with what other alternatives might be possible in the future beyond 2030, and the time that’s needed to actually do that planning to seek further approvals and to enable those outcomes,” she said.
“The way the production profile works is that it is absolutely flat out at the mine until 2030, there is no ramp down in our strip profile between now and 2030.”
Despite the mining operation still going full steam ahead BHP are supporting staff to prepare for the future, having undertaken extensive one-on-one consultations to identify how they can be supported moving forward.
“People wanted financial advice, and so we’ve been working with Mine Super to engage them to set up financial advice sessions with people, that are funded through BHP, so people that are potentially setting up or looking forward to retirement, or may not necessarily have their finances in order, they can go along and seek that feedback and get themselves sorted out well before 2030,” Liz explained.
“The other thing that’s happening is we have put together a bit of a plan, some people have said they want to use this as an opportunity to pivot their career.”
BHP have set up a program where employees can undertake a course through a registered training organisation, that fits a required criteria, and upon successful completion they will be reimbursed for the course fees.
Attendees were also updated on the progressive demolition and rehabilitation work that is already happening at the Muswellbrook site.
View a video of the demolition of the old Bayswater Mine Coal Processing Handling Facility
