South32 takes Siemens to court over turbine failure linked to software issue

South32 is suing Siemens over a turbine failure at its Worsley alumina operation in Western Australia, claiming a software flaw led to the generator being destroyed.

The case goes back to an incident in October 2015, when a steam turbine generator at the site overheated during operation. According to South32, the damage was severe enough that the unit was “effectively destroyed.”

At the centre of the dispute is a programmable logic controller (PLC) tied to the generator. South32 says a key piece of code was missing, something that should have triggered a shutdown by activating the circuit breaker before temperatures got out of control.

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“That code, had it been included and working correctly, would have automatically triggered the generator circuit breaker and prevented [the generator] from overheating,” the Federal Court judgment noted, summarising the miner’s position.

The company has also raised questions about Siemens’ testing processes. It alleges the issue wasn’t identified during earlier work, including a later software upgrade and safety inspection.

Siemens, for its part, has pushed back on responsibility. The company argues that some of the work in question was carried out by Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery, now known as Siemens Energy, and not directly by Siemens itself. 

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The latest development in the case isn’t about the core dispute yet, but about access to documents. South32 had requested internal records as part of the discovery process, while Siemens resisted, saying the documents were not under its direct control because they belonged to a separate corporate entity.

Federal Court Justice Roger Derrington was not convinced. He criticised Siemens for paying “insufficient attention” to its obligations in the discovery process and ordered the company to hand over the requested documents and emails. Siemens was also directed to cover South32’s legal costs related to that application.

The broader case, including liability for the turbine failure, is still ongoing.

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