This is especially as the search for the mines of tomorrow sees more players enter riskier and more remote parts of the world.
That, coupled with a growing emphasis on employer duty of care, is driving many companies to ensure their staff are better prepared.
This is where Perth-based OAM Group, headed by ex-military man Bob Hunter, comes into its own.
The company has worked in the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, Africa, Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Whether it is an established operation or a completely new environment, Hunter said many risks mining companies needed to consider were the same the world over, such as corruption, fraud and theft. But the prevalence of each varied from country to country.
“If you were operating in Port Moresby or PNG, for instance, the risk of car jacking would be very high,” he said.
“Any expatriate or company working there needs to have very strong protective infrastructure around their place of residence and private security.
“Parts of Africa and places like Nigeria would also be up there, along with parts of South America, but at the end of the day it is all about understanding your local environment.”
Risks also come in the form of illegal miners, as many companies operating in Indonesia and parts of Africa, for example, have already experienced, as well as strikes and road blockages.
At the extreme end of the scale, particularly in volatile environments, employees might encounter direct threats and require fortified enclosures and a security presence onsite.
The only situation Hunter said where he needed to carry weapons and where personnel needed weapons training was in Iraq, but this was more for the oil and gas industry and not commonplace.
“When we were in Iraq in 2004 we did have insurgents and people directly targeting the operation with weapons, bombs and attacks, but we could still operate,” he said.
“Obviously, to deal with that required a much higher level of protective capability, but we were still able to work in what was essentially a war zone.
“Everywhere else, employees and companies work within the laws and constraints of the country they are in.”
Hunter said a company’s risk management policy in many cases also tied in with community affairs programs in areas such as education, infrastructure and employment.
Those companies that had been in operation for a while could encounter destabilisation risks, particularly from their local workforce if people felt they were getting a raw deal from the company.
He said mining companies were generally fairly robust in their approach to risk and were accustomed to working in hard environments around the world.
“Part of security risk management is looking at the worst case scenario or last resort if there is a significant crisis as to what the company management plan would be to deal with that,” Hunter said.
“But at the end of the day there are always ways to manage risk, it just depends on the risk appetite and whether people think the risk management strategies are realistic.”
With the right sort of information in hand, a company was better positioned to identify threats and take steps to mitigate them. It would also have a better picture of how a situation was unfolding and whether contingency plans needed to be put in place.
Besides training a mining company’s expatriate staff to deal with risks in their area of operation, OAM also provides staff to manage the security side for them.
