Ciner receives mine safety award

The Industrial Minerals Association – North America (IMA-NA) today announced the companies and mining operations that will receive its safety recognition awards. IMA-NA Chairman Doug Smith and IMA-NA President Mark Ellis presented the awards at the IMA-NA's spring meeting.

The safety recognition awards program is run in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration. Ten companies and three individual mining operations were honored.

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's winners

Ciner Wyoming LLC

Atlanta, Ga.,

Large Category (700,000 or more employee hours)

(877,823 hours)

Old Hickory Clay Company

Mayfield, Ky,

Medium Category (Fewer than 700,000 but more than 100,000 employee hours)

(124,917 hours)

Vanderbilt Minerals, LLC

Norwalk, Conn.,

Small Category (Fewer than 100,000 employee hours)

(63,071 hours)

 "The safety performance of these IMA members is truly inspiring," IMA-NA's Mark Ellis said. "Large Category Honoree Ciner Resources worked 877,823 employee hours with 2 injuries for an injury rate of 0.46 per 200,000 employee work-hours."

"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 and 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." 

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.