How a Chilean mining expansion overcame project complexities and a global pandemic to complete on schedule and within budget
Capital project was the only mining and management project in the country to avoid COVID shutdowns
Zero
Construction days lost to COVID-19
Challenge
Part of the Minerals America asset group, BHP is an Australian multinational mining, metals, and petroleum public company. The Spence Growth Option (SGO) copper mine in northern Chile is a key project for BHP’s portfolio, having invested US$2.46 billion to extend the mine’s life for another 50 years. The five-year project to construct a new concentrator plant was the largest mining and minerals project in the world at the time. From the outset, delivering the project on schedule and within budget presented complex challenges for BHP:
- Ensuring opportunities were offered to the local people, many of whom were new to working in a mine
- Creating a positive safety culture across a workforce numbering up to 6,000
- Aligning diverse cultures with different standards and approaches to many aspects of the work, including safety
- Disproving market skepticism to meet ambitious production targets
- Laying the foundation for a more sustainable mining industry
These initial challenges intensified when, in the latter stages of construction, the world was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Solution
BHP engaged JMJ to help mobilize leadership at all organizational levels and transform the project’s safety culture. Together with BHP, our consultants:
- Facilitated meetings and training sessions before construction began to enroll contracting leaders into the IIF approach
- Helped create an aligned ‘one team’ safety culture across diverse stakeholders
- Embedded integrated Incident and Injury-Free™ (IIF)™ activities across all companies
- Helped integrate key IIF principles and practices into existing systems
- Introduced a ‘shadow coaching’ approach that took formal coaching out of the offices and into the field
- Established a site IIF leadership team that included site managers from BHP and key contractors
- Fostered an environment where safety conversations became commonplace
By putting safety principles and practices in place even before construction began, the project was in a strong position to respond and adapt to the enhanced health and safety requirements of the pandemic. They created measures to prevent infections within the workforce and were able to reduce the amount of people working on site.
I think our greatest success on this project is the lessons we have learned along the way. Personally speaking, I will be able to take what I’ve learned and apply it in my current and future roles in the mining project management industry.
When we started the Incident and Injury-Free safety journey with JMJ, we thought we were buying an approach that would focus on creating a strong safety culture with the front-line craft workers. We soon learned that JMJ’s safety approach starts with senior leaders, and our relationship to safety.
Results
Safety became a fundamental value across the project. Stakeholders worked collaboratively to ensure safety was front of mind for every worker, every day. Spence Growth Option Project and BHP are proud of their strong safety culture and the workforces’ dedication to it. This commitment helped the project complete safely, on budget, and on schedule, becoming the only mining project in Chile that didn’t stop construction during the pandemic.
Defied market skeptics
Project leads the way to a sustainable mining industry
Zero construction days lost
Construction continued throughout the COVID-19 pandemic
Completion goals met
Completed on budget, on time and within quality