New achievements in risk assessment and management will be attained thanks to SRK Consulting merging with Riskope. Indeed, we are pleased to announce that SRK Consulting has merged with Oboni Riskope Associates Inc. (Riskope). At Riskope we have been using our Optimum Risk Estimates (ORE) methodology to support companies in their tactical and strategic planning. Our typical workflow includes identifying hazards that could impact a client’s business, quantifying their probability of occurrence and their potential impact, and then prioritizing the…
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Dear Ryan, please receive this open letter to the organizer of the tailings dam round robin exercise. It explains our position on the round robin exercise you have promoted. As you know we enthusiastically adhered to your round robin proposal although we found a bit odd that such an exercise would be led by a consultant, thus not an impartial entity. Very quickly we started asking for more data, as the knowledge base seemed rather generic. We were not surprised…
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During the first couple decades of our professional life we worked extensively with Landslides risk assessment and monitoring in the European Alps. Most sites were in Switzerland and Italy. At the beginning “risk” was not yet the buzz-word it became later. Clients and governments were seeing hazards impinging on population and infrastructure like transportation, hydropower and bulk-storage facilities. Engineering “repairs” were the most obvious path. Nevertheless, back in 1997 Riskope’s founder Franco Oboni participated in a IUGS workshop in Honolulu. The…
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We are very pleased to see the notion of societal risk acceptability in the Canadian House of Commons, emerge publicly through the records. It is indeed a rare occurrence that information on our work is made public, due to the strict NDAs we sign with our clients. Actually, Mr. Chris Apps, Director, Lands and Resources at Kitselas First Nation, reported on Riskope’s work (see the section at 1655 in the record). Our findings were used to bring positive changes to…
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Multi dimensional Consequences approaches take into consideration the varied losses that a failure can generate. Thus they allow for a more thorough and rational evaluation of a failure potential consequences. Indeed, by breaking down the consequences into distinct dimensions, such as environmental, economic, and social, an additive evaluation of multi dimensional consequences can provide a more realistic assessment of the risks associated with a failure. This approach also allows for greater consideration of the long-term implications of the failure. These…
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We need to diverge from “cosi fan tutti” if we want to truly bring something valuable to our profession and the public. Some professions are open to “disruption” and thus foster innovation. However, many voices around the world comment that strategic/ operational risk assessments, including tailings risk assessments are stuck in a complacent lull. Bring something valuable to our profession and the public is way more than doing our job diligently and perhaps having a fantastic career. Indeed, our friend…
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We thought of Wells Fargo judgement and Tailings risks in follow-up to the recent judgement against a number of bank’s officers. The judgement cites widespread failure to: “identify the root cause of …misconduct”, “provide credible challenges to risk controls managers”, “timely evaluate the effectiveness of risk controls” and finally, “timely identify, address and escalate the risk management controls failures that threatened the safety, soundness and reputation…”. At first sight one may be tempted to dismiss this “banking-legal” stuff as not…
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A mining company asked us to perform a Prefeasibility hazard adjusted NPV evaluation. Our action first focused on bringing clarity in their risk register which presented numerous classic mistakes. Among these the usual confusion in terminology, confusing risks and hazards, uncertainties vs risks, etc. Once the risk register was corrected it was possible to perform the requested hazard adjusted NPV and to draw valuable conclusions. Among these, we highlighted potential fatal flaws of the project which warranted in depth analyses…
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