Mining Engineering Online smenet.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from smenet.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Woodside forced to change tack
Woodside, Australia’s largest oil and gas company with a license to drill for natural gas in the Rakhine Basin, has felt the pressure of community protests and changed tack.
Following the February 1 coup, Woodside initially said their “drilling campaign remains on schedule”. Chief Executive Officer Peter Coleman told
Energy News Bulletin, “It’s not up to us to judge the veracity of grievances [the military] have around the previous election process.”
In response to the vehement backlash to these comments, Coleman released a media statement on February 19, which said: “I regret that I made some remarks in a media interview that have been interpreted as condoning what has occurred in Myanmar.”
Other previous departures include former CEO, two executives Some investors suggest that more board members should leave (Recasts and writes through)
By Melanie Burton
MELBOURNE, March 3 (Reuters) - Rio Tinto, the world s biggest iron ore miner, said on Wednesday its chairman would step down next year to take responsibility for the destruction of ancient rock shelters, the latest in a string of high-profile departures over the blasts.
Simon Thompson will step down after next year s annual general meetings, while non-executive director Michael L Estrange, who led the review into the company s handling of the incident, will retire in May. I am ultimately accountable for the failings that led to this tragic event, Thompson said in a statement.
Last modified on Wed 3 Mar 2021 10.01 EST
Rio Tinto’s chairman will stand down amid an outcry over the miner’s destruction of a 46,000-year-old sacred indigenous site in Western Australia.
Simon Thompson will leave Rio Tinto within the next year after accepting he was “ultimately accountable” for the company’s decision to blow up ancient rock shelters at Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara.
Rio Tinto blew up the rock shelters, which were highly significant to the area’s Aboriginal traditional owners, the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura peoples, to help it access better-quality iron ore deposits.
The decision led to an outcry from Indigenous Australian groups and investors, and a cull of senior executives at the Anglo-Australian company. The chief executive Jean-Sébastien Jacques, the head of corporate relations Simone Niven, and the iron ore boss Chris Salisbury resigned in September last year.