safety

Safety Matters

Safety is a guiding principle at Arch Coal and our subsidiary operations. Our top priority is making sure that every miner returns home safe and healthy at the end of every shift. For the most recent calendar year (2011), our lost-time incident rate of 0.68 was our best safety rate on record and 3.5 times lower than the industry average of 2.44 lost-time injuries per 200,000 hours worked. (*Source: MSHA Coal Controlling Report, MSHA Mine Injury and Worktime 4Q11)



AWARD-WINNING, PROACTIVE SAFETY PRACTICES

Over the years, we have been recognized for safety, including MSHA's top national honor - the Sentinels of Safety Award - in 2001, 2007, 2008 and two in 2011.  We believe our accomplishments are a testament to Arch's deep-rooted culture of treating safety as a value and the strong participation of our employees in the process.

Our mines adopted a behavior-based safety program (BBS) in 2006 that enlists virtually every one of our 7,400 employees to identify at-risk behaviors before an incident occurs. As a result of BBS and other proactive, upstream safety measures, Arch is the safety leader among our peer group of diversified, U.S. coal companies.

IN PURSUIT OF A PERFECT ZERO

The ultimate goal of Arch and our subsidiary operations is A Perfect Zero. This means zero safety incidents and zero environmental incidents. We already pride ourselves on industry leading safety and environmental performance rates. But we believe we can and should do better. With a focus on prevention, we will achieve A Perfect Zero. In fact, four of our operations and facilities achieved A Perfect Zero last year.
 

>> View Arch's recent safety awards list

© 2000-2012 Arch Coal, Inc.