Operations & financial report

Safety

An important factor in Rio Tinto's acquisition of Alcan was alignment across both businesses on the importance of safety. While philosophies were similar, Alcan's definitions were different to those used by Rio Tinto and hence 2007 performance is not comparable. Moving forward, former Alcan operations will adopt Rio Tinto definitions and consolidated data will be presented from 2008.

Regrettably a metal merchant was fatally injured at an Engineered Products operation in December. Alcan's Recordable Case Rate at the end of 2007 represented a 28 per cent reduction over 2006 and an 84 per cent reduction compared to 2001. This performance was 23 per cent better than Alcan's target for the period. The Lost Time Injury Illness Rate also declined by 26 per cent but remained eight per cent short of the 2007 target.

Some notable examples of Alcan's success in reducing these rates include controlling hazardous energy sources from upstream operations and development and roll out of large scale man machine interface programmes in downstream operations.

The former Rio Tinto Aluminium business recorded its best ever safety performance in 2007. The All Injury Frequency Rate improved by 26 per cent over 2006 and the number of Lost Time Injuries reduced by 30 per cent compared to the previous year. During the year New Zealand Aluminium Smelters was awarded the Rio Tinto Chief Executive's Safety Award and Weipa received the award for the Most Improved Site. In 2007, the Safety Leadership Development Programme was introduced across the business and implementation of the Health, Safety and Environment Quality Management System continued.