Emergency situations

Emergency Response Plan

For the Mining, Catalão and Exploration units a procedure called Emergency Response Plan is in place, which describes the possible scenarios, required actions and trained team for response. The Exploration unit conducts annual training of at least 80% of personnel, focusing on fire prevention and fight and first-aid. At the Mining unit, periodical trials are performed to test the capacity of reaction of fire brigade members, first-aiders and support teams. In 2009, five trials were conducted at the Mining unit and five at the Exploration unit.

Codemin and Barro Alto have emergency plans in place, which define the responsibilities in connection with management of and response to external and internal emergencies – actual or potential. In 2009, significant changes were made to Codemin’s emergency response scenarios – changing to ten types of occurrence – and there was an increase in the number of fire brigade members and first-aiders due to the need to comply with legal requirements and increase in emergency scenarios.

The Barro Alto unit also expanded the quantity of fire brigade members due to an increase in the number of employees in the Barro Alto Project. In all, five trials were conducted throughout the year for Niquelândia, two for Barro Alto and nine for the Barro Alto Project.