Timmins, January 7, 2011
Kidd Operations regrets to announce that a fatal accident occurred at the mine late in the evening on January 6 when a contractor suffered an injury, was transported to the hospital but unfortunately died from his injury.
The individual, who worked for J.S. Redpath Limited, was injured while working underground. Management immediately triggered the mine’s emergency response procedures and the individual was transported to the Timmins and District Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. The Ontario Ministry of Labour and Timmins Police have been notified. At this time, Kidd Operations will not release the name of the individual.
“This is a terrible incident. We will now concentrate our efforts on supporting all the employees at the minesite and the family of the deceased individual. We will investigate this incident to find out exactly what occurred” said Tom Semadeni, General Manager at Xstrata Copper Canada’s Kidd Operations.
Timmins Police and the Ontario Ministry of Labour will also conduct their own investigations.
ends
For more information
Louis-Philippe Gariépy :
Manager, Corporate Affairs
Xstrata Copper Canada
514-645-2311, ext. 2162
Notes to editors
ABOUT XSTRATA PLC
Xstrata is a global diversified mining group, listed on the London and Swiss Stock Exchanges, with its headquarters in Zug, Switzerland. Xstrata’s businesses maintain a meaningful position in seven major international commodity markets: copper, coking coal, thermal coal, ferrochrome, nickel, vanadium and zinc, with growing platinum group metals and iron ore businesses, additional exposures to gold, cobalt, lead and silver, recycling facilities and a suite of global technology products, many of which are industry leaders. The Group's operations and projects span 19 countries.
ABOUT XSTRATA COPPER
Xstrata Copper is the fourth largest global copper producer with attributable mined production in 2009 of 907,000 tonnes of copper in cathodes and concentrates. The company is also one of the world’s largest producers of smelter and refined copper, including from third party materials.
Headquartered in Brisbane, Xstrata Copper is one of the commodity business units within the major global diversified mining group Xstrata plc. Its mining and metallurgical operations and development projects span eight countries: Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Peru, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and the USA. Its operations and projects are administered through a regional divisional management structure, which ensures that critical decisions are taken close to the related businesses. It also has a recycling business (Xstrata Recycling) with plants in the United States and offices in Canada and Asia.
ABOUT KIDD OPERATIONS
Located in Timmins, Ontario, the Kidd Operations consist of the Kidd Mine and Kidd Concentrator and are focused on developing and sustaining economic mining plans for the Kidd Creek ore body, which is currently mined through two separate shafts known as No. 2 and No. 4. Production operations reached a depth of 9,200 feet (2,800m) in 2009, making the operation the deepest base metal mine in the world. In the last few years Xstrata Copper has made a commitment to invest more than US$100 million in the Kidd Mine to expand the work site to 9,500 feet, which will prolong the mine’s life to 2017.
Xstrata Copper and its predecessors have been mining the Kidd Creek copper/zinc deposits since 1966.