{"id":776335,"date":"2026-07-03T11:16:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T11:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/776335\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T11:16:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T11:16:19","slug":"peabody-energy-fined-after-worker-trapped-inside-bulldozer-in-coal-void","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/776335\/","title":{"rendered":"Peabody Energy fined after worker trapped inside bulldozer in coal void"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Queensland magistrate has criticised a mining company for allowing workers to use a faulty GPS system that resulted in a bulldozer falling through the bottom of a coal stockpile, trapping the driver.<\/p>\n

The Mackay Magistrates Court heard the bulldozer operator was trapped upside down in the cab for more than eight hours at the Moorvale mine on January 27, 2023.<\/p>\n

The open cut mine is located about 140 kilometres south-west of Mackay and employs about 200 people.<\/p>\n

Mine operator Peabody Energy Australia PCI (C&M Management) Pty Ltd pleaded guilty to one count of failing to discharge health and safety obligations.<\/p>\n

\"Coal<\/p>\n

The Moorvale mine is owned by a joint venture, with Peabody controlling a majority stake. (ABC Tropical North: Melissa Maddison)<\/p>\n

The court heard workers were using bulldozers to move processed coal through valves that fed coal onto a conveyor belt for transport to waiting trains.<\/p>\n

In sentencing the company, Magistrate Damien Dwyer said workers relied on GPS to know where the valves were located.<\/p>\n

He said the GPS in the bulldozer was not working correctly and, about 11.30pm, the worker was shifting a 20-metre-high coal stockpile when his dozer came too close to an open valve and rolled backwards into it.<\/p>\n

Magistrate Dwyer said the dozer was almost completely buried with only one of the machine’s tracks visible from above.<\/p>\n

The worker was not rescued until 7:30am the next day.<\/p>\n

The court heard the worker lay on the cab roof overnight, cooling himself with a fan and had access to a self-rescuer oxygen supply.<\/p>\n

\"coal<\/p>\n

Peabody Energy owns stakes in seven Australian mines.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n

He was taken to Moranbah Hospital where he was treated for dehydration and released later the same day.<\/p>\n

Second incident in months<\/p>\n

Magistrate Dwyer said it was “concerning” the GPS in the dozer was known to be faulty.<\/p>\n

He said the same system had failed to operate correctly four months earlier, on September 27, 2022, when a worker was trapped in their bulldozer for five hours above the same valve.<\/p>\n

The court heard the valve was not marked on the surface but other valves were.<\/p>\n

Work Health and Safety prosecutor Edward Fleetwood argued that, because of the previous incident, the fine should be raised above the base rate of $80,000.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Magistrate Dwyer criticised the company over a faulty GPS system.\u00a0 (ABC News: Jonathan Hair)<\/p>\n

Defence barrister Benjamin Dighton said that, after the first instance, the company had started to address the risk through a physical marker for the valve and a technological upgrade for the GPS, which was still underway when the second instance occurred.<\/p>\n

Magistrate Dwyer said the company was attempting to fix the GPS issue but allowed work to continue as normal when the second incident occurred.<\/p>\n

Despite this, he said Peabody’s sentencing was mitigated by the company’s 26-year clean record.<\/p>\n

He ordered the company to pay $132,768.95 in fines and costs.<\/p>\n

No conviction was recorded, and the organisation was given three months to pay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Queensland magistrate has criticised a mining company for allowing workers to use a faulty GPS system that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,12334,368197,368196,368198,7130,368200,368199,62130],"class_list":["post-776335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-coal-mining","tag-coal-valve","tag-coppabella","tag-entrapment","tag-gps","tag-mackay-magistrates-court","tag-metallurigcal-coal","tag-peabody"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}