Coal Mine Safety Management in Vietnam

Abstract

Vietnamese coal industry is now increasing the production at a higher rate of around 15 percent a year that is almost double of the economic growth. Their coal production of 12 million tons in 2000 had been increased up to 48 million tons in 2011, most of which are anthracite, namely four times increase in ten years. During this time, depending ratio on underground production increased from 33% to 45% and in the near future underground production inevitably exceeds the production from open pit coal mines. In contrast with production increase, safety record has not been improved in the past 10 years, for example, fatality rate per one million tons of underground coal mine stays around one since 2003, namely, safety of underground coal mine had not improved not so much in spite of much effort of relevant people in Vietnam. From the experiences of technical advices for coal mine safety management in Vietnam for more than 10 years, the author had found five key important factors which relate to the safety management of underground coal mines, and which are (1) safety check during weekend and holidays, (2) ineffective utilization of monitored data, (3) production overemphasis mine design, (4) non-feasible coal mine safety regulations and (5) organizational structure for coal mine safety management. In this report, those five factors are introduced in concrete manner and some proposals for improvement would be discussed.