WASHINGTON, DC – Ciner Wyoming LLC was recognized as one of the safest mines in North America by the Industrial Minerals Association – North America (IMA-NA) today.
IMA-NA announced the companies and mining operations that will receive its safety recognition awards during spring meetings in Washington, D.C this week.
IMA-NA Chairman Doug Smith and IMA-NA President Mark Ellis presented the awards at the IMA-NA’s meeting. The safety recognition awards program is run in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).
Ten companies and three individual mining operations were honored during the meeting. The IMA-NA Safety Achievement Award recognizes the best reportable injury rate for an individual IMA-NA member company by size category for the preceding calendar year, in this case 2018.
The award criteria evaluate a company’s safety performance at all of its mines. This year, Ciner Wyoming LLC, located west of Green River, received the award in the Large Category that includes 700,000 or more employee hours.
“The safety performance of these IMA members is truly inspiring,” enthused IMA-NA’s Mark Ellis. “Large Category Honoree Ciner Resources worked 877,823 employee hours with two injuries for an injury rate of 0.46 per 200,000 employee work-hours.”
Ciner Site Manager Craig Rood attended the meeting along with Safety Manager Neil Malicoat and said it’s always an honor to win any award for safety.
“It is especially nice to be recognized as one of the safest mines in North America,” Rood added. “But at the end of the day, safety is a core value for us at Ciner. The goal is for our employees to go home, to their family’s, at the end of the shift the same way they showed up at the start of the shift. We believe the most important thing to come out of our mine is our miners.”
“MSHA and IMA-NA strive to help the industry achieve its ultimate goal – sending safe and healthy miners home to their families, every shift, every day,” said Douglas Smith, IMA-NA’s Chairman and Vice President & General Manager, North American Ceramics, for Imerys (Roswell, Georgia). “We’re pleased to recognize IMA-NA member companies that have compiled excellent safety records and who serve as examples for other companies.”
About IMA-NA
IMA-NA was formed in April 2002 and represents mineral producer members and associate members providing goods and services to the industrial minerals industry. Membership is comprised of companies that are leaders in the ball clay, barite, bentonite, borates, calcium carbonate, diatomite, feldspar, industrial sand, kaolin, soda ash (trona), talc, wollastonite and other industrial minerals industries. IMA-NA is the principal trade association representing the industrial minerals industry in North America. To learn more, visit http://www.ima-na.org.
