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January 28, 2008 |
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GRUPO MEXICO: Must Disclose Results of Mine Surveys Jonathon Shacat at The Sierra Vista Herald and The Bisbee Daily Review reports that a coordinator of an independent health and safety support network has urged Grupo Mexico SA, de C.V., to disclose the results of a survey being conducted on the conditions at the Cananea, Sonora, copper mine. The Herald and The Review relates that Grupo Mexico said it contracted Dupont and Safety Solutions International to conduct the survey. According to The Herald and The Review, Dupont and Safety Solutions are supposed to disclose inspection reports and recommendations later in January 2008. Maquiladora Health and Safety Support Network coordinator Garrett Brown told The Herald and The Review that information should be made available to the public. Mr. Brown commented to The Herald and The Review, "A sanitized summary of the consultants' workplace survey will not give Mexican society any confidence that Grupo Mexico actually recognizes its responsibility to protect the lives and health of its employees." The Herald and The Review relates that Mr. Brown coordinated a team of occupational health professionals that toured the mine to: -- inspect processing plants, and -- conduct lung function tests on about 70 workers in early October. Mr. Brown's group released a preliminary report in November 2007 that documented dangerous conditions at the Grupo Mexico facility, The Herald and The Review notes. However, the Mexican Labor Department declared the group's study as not legally valid as it wasn't carried out by the department and was completed while the miners were protesting. Mr. Brown then released early this year the final version of the team's study, listing serious safety and health-related hazards at the open-pit mine and related processing plants. The study also has a full text of a report of the Mexican Labor Department investigators that inspected the facility in April. According to The Herald and The Review, the labor department's report listed some 72 corrective actions that include: -- fixing the brakes on cranes, and -- reassembling dismantled dust collectors in the concentrator buildings. The Labor Department had said it would carry out extraordinary inspections of the mine when it returns to production, the reports say. Labor Department Secretary Javier Lozano Alarcon said he will inspect the mine this week, The Herald and The Review states. Grupo Mexico SA de C.V. -- http://www.grupomexico.com/ -- through its ownership of Asarco and the Southern Peru Copper Company, Grupo Mexico is the world's third largest copper producer, fourth largest silver producer and fifth largest producer of zinc and molybdenum. * * * As reported in the Troubled Company Reporter-Latin America on Dec. 29, 2006, Fitch upgraded the local and foreign currency Issuer Default Rating assigned to Grupo Mexico, S.A. de C. V. to 'BB+' from 'BB'. Fitch said the rating outlook is stable. |
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