Injuries to employees are declining but the company still is challenged by an unacceptable number of high-energy accidents that could carry potentially fatal consequences, Josh Olmsted, President and Chief Operating Officer-Americas, said during a recent virtual town hall with employees.
Olmsted was joined at the event by Steve Higgins, Senior Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer and Bert Odinet, Vice President, Chief Information Officer and Chief Innovation Officer. Higgins discussed the global economic factors keeping short-term copper prices down, while Odinet described the company’s response to a recent cyber-attack.
The hour-long town hall included a 30-minute presentation followed by questions and answers. Questions generally sought more detail on the topics addressed during the presentation.
As in the past, safety remains the top concern, and the third quarter came with mixed results, Olmsted said.
The rate of recordable on-the-job injuries has declined steadily since the beginning of the year amid intensive efforts by company leaders to stress safety, Olmsted said. The third quarter was the best three months of the year in terms of the rate of recordable incidents, which are those that result in lost time, medical treatment or death.
On the downside, the number of the most serious incidents has been going up. That includes accidents that carry a substantial possibility of someone getting seriously hurt, and the more serious Potentially Fatal Events where there is a reasonable risk of someone getting killed in a similar circumstance. These types of events carry the potential for harm unless corrective action is taken.
In the Americas, of the 19 PFEs in the first nine months of 2023, eight happened between July and September, including five in early September. There were six in October, the beginning of the fourth quarter.
“That trend that we're seeing with the uptick in the number of high-energy, potentially fatal events is very, very concerning,” Olmsted said. “We all need to make sure that we're really focused on those things that will kill you. If it wasn't for luck in several of these cases, we could be sitting here talking about a couple or several different fatalities. And none of us can be happy, satisfied or content with that.”
Olmsted and the other company leaders returned to the topic of safety throughout the town hall, which Olmsted closed with a message to all employees.
“The most important thing that all of us do every day is manage our safety,” he said. “When we manage our safety well the business gets managed well. As we think about these high-risk events that we've been having, we have to make sure that we're all really driving, challenging and ensuring that we're thinking about those things day in and day out as part of the work, not separate from the work.”
Managing the cyber-attack
The August cyber-attack was disruptive, but it was something the company had prepared for, Odinet said. Before the attack there had been substantial investment in strengthening cyber security, data encryption, identity authentication and separating the business side of the company’s information technology network from the site operations side.
“The company itself was as well prepared for this event as it possibly could be,” Odinet said. He added the cyber-defense preparations “allowed us to continue to produce while we got the business back up and running. That isolation allows the rest of the team to really focus on one segment of recovery without having to worry about the sort of health and safety issues that can occur with the operations network going down.”
Odinet said his department is continuing to work throughout the company to update procedures, enhance data security and ensure crisis management and business continuity plans are up to date. Every employee should assess the information they are keeping on the company network, the sensitivity of the information, how well it’s protected and whether it needs to even be kept, he added during the question-and answer session.
Global economy driving copper price
The copper market will remain volatile while the global economy remains sluggish, Higgins said. Housing in China is down. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are aggravating global uncertainty. Those and other events are fueling volatility and depressing the price of copper. At the same time, inflation is driving production costs up. Given these factors, Olmsted asked employees to give extra consideration to ensuring expenses align with the needs of the business.
On the positive side, despite the macroeconomic pressures, the demand for copper remains healthy, particularly in the United States and China, Higgins said. The transition to cleaner energy through wind, solar and electric vehicles also will continue to drive growing demand for copper in the long term.
Given the market uncertainties though, Higgins also emphasized the need for the company to be thoughtful and smart about current spending.