 Good morning everybody. Welcome here this morning, just to give you an update on where we are with the mines fire. We are progressing extremely well. Our strategies are in place and working effectively with five priorities in order. Our first priority is the safety of our personnel on site and the mines personnel and the community. Our second priority is the protection of critical infrastructure within the mine and there's been some very good work done in relation to the water management, which we'll talk about in a moment. Our third priority is to secure the northern batters of the mine and we are progressing very well across the from west to east a lot across those batters and then we'll move into the southern batters and progressively work down down the length of the southern batters. We've got a couple of problem areas in there that we're dealing with it's still putting up a fair amount of smoke for the community so that's a priority for us is to deal with those first. So we've got crews from all over Australia working with us now we've got the aviation fire service with the attenders we've also got the Queensland fire service Tasmania fire service and New South Wales fire service providing us with specialist compressed air foam units working with our ground crews on the on the front line doing an excellent job now working in teams and these teams are a part of our overall strategy. Do you want to speak first Luke or do you want us to keep going? That's entirely up to you. Tell us about tomorrow what you're expecting up into the afternoon and evening and also Friday are we looking at a similar situation to last Tuesday? We are on Wednesday we will we've got some weather coming in overnight Tuesday which will move in across our area the area of the mines on Wednesday morning so we could have a very similar scenario to last Tuesday but as as we did last Tuesday we're actually preparing for that. Today we are planning we're planning the resources that are required for us to have on standby we're we're endeavoring to bring in additional medium Halitac aircraft that too old for tomorrow sorry for Wednesday just to give us that additional aerial support and we'll bring in additional ground crews and have them on standby to protect any of the infrastructure outside the mine so we'll go through exactly the same process as we did last Tuesday we were successful then and hope but hopefully we won't need to do that. The issue for us on the Wednesday will be the wind the wind change if it mixes down as predicted will give us some grief in the mine so we can only be prepared for that. Can you give us a few statistics like how much is it reduced in size by how deep is it burning that kind of thing? Look the the depth of burning across the mine is virtually surface depth it ranges from you know anywhere from on the surface to you know half a meter we our teams are working across the batters in in a methodical manner we put the aircraft tenders in first to wash that batter down and cool it slightly then we put the the CAFs foam or the compressed air foam over that and then we have crews come up behind that to blacken that out in depth and continue to patrol those areas and that's that's been working very effectively. You mentioned two problem areas can you tell us a bit about where they are how problematic they are and perhaps how big they are? Yeah we've got a very hot area in the eastern end of the northern batter which we're working on that's that's our main priority as I said that to secure the northern batters in depth is on the top of our agenda as we move around into the southern batters that on the about the middle it is right on the bend in the in that southern edge there is there's actually a very hot spot at which our people are excluded from entering it's a no-go zone for our people and it's been burning fairly freely now Luke for for some time but we are today putting in a strategy of how we will deal with that we have to remove some debris and infrastructure in that area to allow our people to access it safely we won't let our people go there until it's safe once that's removed we will work with mines to put access in around that area and then we'll concentrate on that with both monitors ground crews and water bombing to cool it off and once we cool it off we can then move the tankers sorry the aerial appliances and the caps units in to deal with it but at the moment it's still very hot but and it's putting up a fair bit of smoke and heat so but we will move to it as we move over the next couple of days we'll get on to that is it the case that the debris shouldn't have been there in the first place I look you'll have to refer that to Luke it's a part of the mining process so I think it's a part of the old mining structure before I start the interview or answer any questions let me just say that we as a GDF Suez has wood that really sympathize and acknowledge the problems that people are encountering today we consider has wood as part of the community we have been there for a long time and we really really deeply sympathize with the people of mobile like I said coming back to your question it's important to know that the mine is a going concern so once you start digging you also clean up the areas you left behind so this is part of the rehabilitation program so we have rehabilitation program in place that is approved by various regulations so this is just working progress while we dig further removing fuel out of the mine to burn in the power station we've heard allegations that the company has sold off part of their sprinkler systems and other infrastructure that could be used to fight fires has that material and equipment being sold that's incorrect so what happens if you like I said mining is a growing concern so you do rehabilitation while you deco so part of the areas that are that are already rehabilitated like northern banners part of the northern but we have removed the old sprinkler systems because otherwise you can't rehabilitate so we remove old pipes we remove old infrastructure the moment we do rehabilitation so that's what happened and that's what continues to happen is there any education there was already a fire in the pit before the bush fire started no not that I'm aware of so uh that day was a very particular day that's Sunday as you might recall on Friday there was already uh some fires mentioned so we are people on my work so we didn't have any fire anywhere in the mine on Sunday we are two sources that came up at the same time look is there anything that could have been done to have prevented this fire from starting covering up the coal things like that well like I said uh mining is a growing concern rehabilitation is part of your mining process so we continue to rehabilitate according to the progress in the mine and this has been under approval from regulatory officers was the state government regularly auditing your fire prevention plans correct so there's an annual review of our fire preparedness program so it's done by various regulations so we have that in place it's been audited we audited ourselves as well because we have to make sure that we have safe working environment of course is there anything GDF sewers could have done to prevent this fire from occurring well we have all our mitigation plan in place and the moment we had these two fire spots in the mine to find the mitigation plan 15 this is not something that we like it is most probably there's an arsonist like it likes in the media that the light it is fire somewhere so we are just parks coming into the mine and then we started finding tell us about the company's decision not to attend any of the the community meetings um three things things like that over the past three weeks um I think that's not entirely correct we had a number of interviews that were conducted in the first week in the second week we put out a number of publications in the local newspapers to inform people what's going on and we so we have been actively talking to people also yesterday the question was asked why didn't you attend the protest meeting we spoke with the organizer organizer advised us not to be there now the nature of that meeting yesterday changed because it was a protest meeting with a change to a community meeting if we would have known that most probably we would have been there all sort of a cost is this coming up for international power how much is this by costing well i'm going to reply in a different way we're focusing on getting extinguishing or extinguishing the fire together with the fire authorities which are main focus once the fire is out we will do an investigation our own investigation that might be an inquiry from the state as well once that comes out we'll see what happens but today our focus on extinguishing the fire we have to get relieving for the people of Morales and we're doing that I think very successful with the fire authority like some local residents want compensation will the company provide any like I said Henswood has been part of the community we call it our community we've always been very supportive of the Muller community once we can change the focus from extinguishing the fire we will continue supporting the community like we did before but his specific compensation for this fire on the card the focus on extinguishing the fire we have been very supportive for the Muller community over all the years that Henswood is there we will continue to do so once we can get the focus of the fire so what does that mean you're ruling out any specific compensation the focus is on extinguishing the fire we've been very supportive for the Muller community over all the years. We'll continue to do so once we can get the focus back or focus off the fire. So are you talking about compensation? Again, like I said, the focus is on extinguishing the fire. We have been very supportive for the media, for the media, so for the community over all the years, we'll continue to do so once the fire is out. Can you tell us just a bit more about your feelings for the community? You've expressed well it's it's it's of course if you have to live in that smoke that's not not easy and that's why we have a strategy in place with the fire authorities. We are handling the northern battles first because that's causing most grief in the in the local community. We're fighting that and I think very successful like Barry already said sorry Bob already said that's very successful. We're preparing for the for the coming Wednesday to make sure that things are not getting out of hand again but again focus is on getting the fire up this will give the most relief for the community. Bob can I ask you is there any indication that there was a fire in the pit before that bushfire came through? Certainly not to my knowledge. We keep receiving calls from your firefighters saying that there was. Look I this is my second tour of duty into the mine. I came in last week the fire started some time before that. I'm not across the detail of the the the initial cause and the initial fire within the mine so I certainly can't comment on that. Can I go back to Luke with a question? There's been an enormous focus on bushfire preparations. Communities, individuals, families, etc. over the last particularly last five years as we all know. Are you comfortable that your company was well prepared enough for that day and the fire that eventually eventuated? Of course we are and let me put it back in a different way. Hayswood supplies 25 percent of the energy need for Victoria. If you don't do that in a serious way how can you do this? So we have all the fire mitigation programs in place they have been audited there is an annual review so of course we are we're having a very safe working environment for our people and a safe environment for the community. And it sounds like there'll be multiple inquiries comfortable about fronting then? Of course. Your company comfortable about appearing providing all the information? We have nothing to hide and we will work through with any inquiry that is required from us. Deputy Premier Peter Ryan says that the state government is in talks with GDF sewers about GDF sewers contributing to paying for some of the firefighting efforts. Can you give us an update on those talks? Well from a GDF sewers as with perspective we are focusing on extinguishing the fire there will be an inquiry investigation afterwards we'll pull lessons out of that and we'll see what comes of it. Today this is like a little bit speculation let's focus on the thing that's at hand extinguishing the fire getting a relief into the people of Moa. It's costing an extraordinary amount are you surprised by how angry the community is at the company? I can understand that it costs a lot of grieving Moa that's why we say we sympathize with the community with our community and that's why we focus on getting the fire out and we have that strategy in place to get the fire in the northern batters out to get that relief into Moa. But to expect the community of Victoria as a whole to pay for that? Again the focus on extinguishing the fire it's going to get the most benefit to the Moa community having that fire out. We will have an inquiry afterwards we will have an investigation we'll see what comes out of that but let us focus on the task at hand is extinguishing the fire. And how long do you think that'll take how long do you think it'll take to extinguish everything? That's maybe more for the local fire authority or for the fire authority but what I want to say is it's a very complex issue as you can see on the drawings we have multiple fires it also started in a very complex environment on the day itself because there were multiple fires around the mine as well so it's very difficult to pinpoint say this is the date we're going to extinguish everything but maybe Bob is better placed to answer that question than I do. In relation to how long we'll be fighting this fire we can't give an accurate estimation of how long it'll take it's very dependent on weather as I said we're moving into difficult weather again on Wednesday that could see a setback in the mines where hopefully we'll have the northern batters secured to the point where there'll be minimal impact on the weather on that but the weather will certainly impact on the southern batters as we move into Wednesday as per the predicted weather so that might that might take us back a step but we are continuing to move forward that's the progressive thing about this if you look at the the line scans that we do every night and you look at our floor our forward-looking infrared aircraft flights that cover this area several times a day every time we we take that view there's an there is a definite improvement so look I've said this before it's like eating an elephant it's a little bit at a time it really is it's and and that's putting it in the simplest terms and and we're just taking those little bites every day but in time we'll eat the elephant the elephant of the eastern side of the northern batters how big is it and how close is it to the town I'm guessing it might be that one no no that's the northern batters we're talking the southern batters whether you mentioned there was on the north eastern batters yes you can see it in the red they're on the map no further over to the eastern end of the northern batters there where your finger is now yeah no further over red there right there yeah yeah and we how big is that the bold red one and how well how big is it it takes each one of those units there are 100 meters in size so if you if you if you in in length it's linear measurement so and that goes up the face of the batter so if you're looking at that there's about 400 meters there of batter in that hotspot we'll continue to focus on that that's we're moving we're moving to those areas now we have to cool down as we go to allow our people to get in there safely the other aspect of this there is still ash and debris pulling down from the batters the mines people have to clear that to give us access into that areas so there are a number of safety issues for our people so again it's slowly slowly we need to be make sure that there is every aspect of safety considered and that's been extensive through this whole operation if you have a look at the health monitoring that we've put in place for our people if you look at the welfare that we've put in our place in place for our people relieving our people off the line every two hours so they can recuperate from the very difficult work that they're engaged in our main consideration is for them we get we get that out of the road we will then deal with the critical infrastructure that we're doing and there is some critical infrastructure in all these key areas that we've we're concentrating on we'll make sure that's correct and and we look after that because that that really hinders Luke doesn't it that if we lose that critical infrastructure then it affects our firefighting operations dramatically how's the mine holding up there was some concerns about its integrity last week we have our own independent geotechs working with the mines geotechs and all indications to us is the the the mine is operating normally there are there is some cracking that appears from time to time that is a normal process within the mine and we're dealing with that the stability of the water in the mine is a normal process within the mine but it puts some limitations on us as a fire station fire service it's water in water out in relation to to water management we're putting in additional pumps today and over 4.7 kilometers of of pipeline that's going in to take more water out of the mine which will allow us to put more water into the mine in suppression activities guys i'll make this last question yeah so it's a very balanced approach and i've got to say the the mines people are working directly with us we have a strategic meeting every day where we sit down and discuss the strategy for the next 24 hours and we're working hand in hand to make sure we're in partnership to overcome this problem just one more question could you tell us as we've spoken a lot about the community how the workers holding up in the mine if you had any concerns from them people not wanting to come to work in the mine things like that no i have to say a full admiration for all our people for the fire authorities they've been working around the clock 24 hours doing the best they can putting in an enormous effort it's it's really fantastic so i can only congratulate them and all the work they're doing