Mongolian company Premium Concrete – which works on our Oyu Tolgoi Underground copper-gold project in the South Gobi Desert – was named Best Contractor in the 2020 Chief Executive Safety Awards for its exceptional and deeply embedded safety culture.
“We believe that our contractors at the underground project rank amongst the very best in the world in terms of safety management,” says Chris Aitchison, Underground Project Director at Oyu Tolgoi.
“This is a fantastic achievement that everyone should be very proud of.”
Our annual Chief Executive Safety Awards recognise our teams and sites that have demonstrated sustained and excellent safety performance, leadership, engagement, critical risk management, and learning.
Chris says that there are three things that stand out about Premium and the way they work.
“It is their risk management approach and how they implement it in every task. Premium Concrete are constantly focused on reducing risk in the workplace and engaged with their teams on daily work planning, understanding risk and controls, and sharing learnings from incidents.
“It is their rituals and real belief in processes and systems, ensuring those rituals are followed thoroughly during their daily tasks.
“The third thing that really stands out is how proud they are to work for the project, the work they complete and the way in which they engage with their stakeholders.”
The award also recognised how Premium Concrete has continued to improve and to achieve a high standard in implementing our Safety Maturity Model criteria.
“We can all celebrate as a project,” adds Chris. “A little bit of this award belongs to everyone. Thank you and congratulations Premium!”
Premium Concrete
Premium Concrete was established in 2011 and is a major supplier of concrete in Mongolia with more than 1,600 employees. They have a team of approximately 300 people on site at the Underground Project.
Batmunkh Ochirbat, Chief Executive Officer, Premium Industrial and Engineering, says that their operations at Oyu Tolgoi began in 2017 and that since the beginning they have continuously improved safety procedures.
One of the improvements in safety procedures was instilling a culture of critical risk management (CRM).
“Our safety manager also developed internally a safety initiative programme to reward strong work performance, safety, and development of safety process,” says Batmunkh.
“Productivity is important, but understanding that working safely is the key to success and the success of our team.”
The teams from Oyu Tolgoi and Premium Concrete also learn from each other when it comes to sharing safety knowledge and experience.
“Our team spends many hours with the OT team and as an example, the electrical and engineering team worked closely with our team to provide support on technical issues, document guidance and do a safety review,” says Batmunkh.
Batmunkh says that Premium’s success is their mindset.
“The mindset instilled in all our employees that we are not a temporary contractor, we are an integral part of OT operations. We have a beginner’s mindset. With that mindset, we consistently explore new ways of growing our company.”