Special skills & training feature – Part two

South Australian mining industry rallies to help local ‘geos’
A 22 year-old South Australian has become the first graduate geologist to be employed at an operational mine under an innovative scheme to retain local “talent” in the State’s burgeoning minerals exploration sector.
Matthew Boxall has joined OZ Minerals Limited as a Mine Geologist at its $1.1 billion Prominent Hill copper mine in northwest SA - the first graduate employed at a working mine under a new program designed to assist promising local geoscientists to stay in their home state.
Boxall, a geology graduate from Adelaide University, was “discovered” by OZ Minerals through the Geoscientist Assistance Program (GAP) - a partnership between the South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy (SACOME) and the State Government’s Primary Industries and Resources SA (PIRSA) - which is being credited with the creation of new industry positions, little over four months after its launch in October last year.
The pioneering program, funded with a $750,000 grant from PIRSA’s Plan for Accelerating Exploration (PACE), has already placed 12 new graduates and unemployed geoscientists in positions ranging from Project Geologists to Geophysicists and Geological Researchers.
Matthew Boxall said the GAP had not only helped him win a crucial “career break” - but one that meant he did not have to travel interstate away from his family and home.
“The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) meant that there were very few geoscientists’ jobs around when I graduated, and I was really concerned that I might wind up unemployed for a long period,” said Boxall.
“But thanks to the GAP, I now have a foot in the door at a very exciting multi-commodity mine - and one that is providing me with some great mentors.”
Mick Wilkes, executive general manager operations at OZ Minerals, said the GAP showed how government and industry could work together to “build skills depth” in the mining and minerals sector.
“Without a crop of highly talented people who want to work in mining, the industry will only wallow in mediocrity,” Wilkes said.
“The GAP will only help to improve standards here in South Australia.”
SACOME said that the growing participation of SA’s resources companies - 16 of which have registered with the GAP - counters the gloomy picture of resource-related employment presented in January by the Australian Institute of Geoscientists, as well as more recent claims by the South Australian Opposition that SA’s exploration industry is going “backwards”.
“The GFC may have temporarily slowed our exploration progress, but the fact is that our minerals industry has been highly proactive in developing the skills that will be necessary for the mining expansion we all know is coming,” SACOME’s chief executive, Jason Kuchel, said.
“The success of GAP shows just what can be achieved if you tackle an employment challenge head on - with serious incentives and practical training.”

Gorgon taps into SKM interactive training
Sinclair Knight Merz has been awarded the contract to provide induction training and leadership workshops for the Gorgon Project.
The contract includes providing the training venue, programs and facilitators over a five-year term for a workforce of approximately 16,000 people.
The training will be provided from SKM’s Learning Centre, a registered training organisation, at Perth Domestic Airport, which currently provides training services to a range of clients in the mining, aviation and oil and gas industries. The centre is ideally located to support the fly-in/fly-out schedules of participants.
Manager of the SKM Learning Centre, Mick Hyde, said that the delivery of SKM’s training services was underpinned by the Visual Learning Methodology, a specialist interactive technique to assist participants to share knowledge and engage in collaborative discussions.
“This training style maximises information retention by participants and is recognised by industry leaders,” Hyde said.
“All programs are customised to each client’s needs and continually refined to meet client-specific outcomes.”
The SKM Learning Centre provides a range of services including:
. Nationally Accredited competency-based training 
. Workplace inductions 
. Supervisor leadership programs 
. Client specific learning and development programs 
. Indigenous culture & heritage awareness training 
. Unique safe culture programs
The Gorgon Project is a joint venture between the Australian subsidiaries of Chevron (Operator), ExxonMobil and Shell, to develop the Greater Gorgon gas fields, located between 130km and 200km off the north-west coast of Western Australia. The Greater Gorgon gas fields contain resources of about 40 trillion cubic feet of gas, Australia’s largest-known gas resource.

Micromine & BNA partner with University of São Paulo
Micromine’s Brazil Partner, BNA Consultoria e Sistemas Ltda (BNA) has signed an Academic Licence Agreement with the Department of Mining and Petroleum Engineering of University of São Paulo (USP).
Recognised as one of Brazil’s most well respected Universities, USP’s Laboratory of Mine Planning and Optimisation (LAPOL) has a team of lecturers dedicated to teaching modelling and mine planning applications as well as developing graduate research and innovation for the mining industry.
LAPOL have undertaken this strategic partnership arrangement with Micromine and BNA, endorsing the use of their premier mine design solution, MICROMINE for teaching and research purposes at USP.
The technology will enable LAPOL and USP the potential of joint research programs to be developed in specific areas of interest such as multithread and parallel computing, virtual reality and three dimensional mine planning.
BNA is a Brazilian private company established in 2008, which develops geological engineering applications for the exploration and mineral sector.