3-D seismic survey key to discoveries at depth
Josh Chiat
The company spearheading Australia’s biggest 3-D seismic survey for minerals exploration says it will become a major key to unlocking WA’s new mining discoveries at increasing depths.
HiSeis,a 3-D surveying company spun out of research by Curtin University, has been contracted by diversified miner Independence Group to undertake a 60sqkm digital map on the Fraser Range, 160km east of Norseman.
Ken Brinsden, CEO of Pilbara Minerals, Chair of the Finance Subcommittee WASMA, addressed the Melbourne Mining Club April 27 2018.
See below recording of ken’s address
https://boardroom.media/broadcast/?eid=5ae2595a8f283b160463fa47
The Conversation April 23 2018https://theconversation.com/precarious-employment-is-rising-rapidly-among-men-new-research-94821
Precarious work has increased in mining at a greater rate than in any other sector, driven mainly by workers’ sense of job insecurity as the sector shifts to a less labour intensive production phase, and the volatility of global resource prices.
The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey is a household-based panel study that collects valuable information about economic and personal well-being, labour market dynamics and family life.
The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey is a household-based panel study that collects valuable information about economic and personal well-being, labour market dynamics and family life. It aims to tell the stories of the same group of Australians over the course of their lives.
Started in 2001, the HILDA Survey provides policy-makers with unique insights about Australia, enabling them to make informed decisions across a range of policy areas, including health, education and social services.
To read more on the Future of Employment and the effects of precarious employment read the Bankwest Curtin Economics Report
We’re told all the time about the shortage of employment opportunities for university graduates. It’s statistically true, but there’s also a hidden problem: A disconnect between business and universities. It was this problem that Liz Jakubowski first identified before conceptualising a way to fix it. Enter, Ribit.net; a new digital portal connecting tertiary educated graduates with tech, marketing and research roles and employers
Why didn’t we think of this?
Recruiters and employers say job opportunities in Kalgoorlie-Boulder’s resources sector are continuing to rise, as new data shows advertised vacancies in the mining industry increased by more than 30 per cent in WA last year. National firm DFP Recruitment’s mining and resources jobs index shows demand for labour in the industry climbed almost 40 per cent in Australia in 2017, coming after a prolonged decline in demand for employees. It is the best level the national market has hit in more than three years, since April, 2014.
While demand for mining employees in WA remains 17 per cent lower than in November, 2013, when DFP ran its first survey, DFP Kalgoorlie branch manager Robyn Steenbach said demand for workers was now strong in Kalgoorlie-Boulder. “I think there’s a greater demand in Kalgoorlie for people as well … and there are more people coming back into town,” she said. “In the last year it’s harder and harder to get the right people for the jobs that are out there because the demand is so much greater. “There have been people that have been over East or in the Perth area who have been unemployed for quite a while who have come into Kalgoorlie and been able to pick up quite a bit of work, which is fantastic.”
About 46 per cent of all resources job vacancies are in WA, with opportunities in the State’s mining sector up 32.9 per cent during 2017. That has also opened opportunities for new entrants to the market, including KCGM process technician Talitha Barry, who arrived to town from Mandurah last year and secured work at the Super Pit after making inquiries with labour hire contractor Corestaff. The mother-of-four joined her husband in the mining industry after coming to Kalgoorlie-Boulder, having faced a tough employment market in the FIFO sector. “Our only option to get into mining was to do FIFO, but having no experience it was really difficult to get in,” she said. “Moving to Kalgoorlie it opened a whole lot of doors for us.”
Graeme Wilmot, owner and director of local contractor Wilmot Engineering, said his business had rebuilt steadily on the back of increased mining activity around Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Having pared his workforce to a bare-bones 15-odd employees when the downturn hit hardest around 2014, Mr Wilmot said he now had about 40 workers on the books, although about 60 per cent of those are casual. “We probably reduced our workforce down to the bare minimum and we’ve slowly just built up from there again,” he said. “We changed to having a lot of casuals employed as we started to build up. “I would say the casual labour market is still quite an important part of the town because a lot of employers are not willing to have large workforces because situations can change quite quickly.”
According to DFP, demand is up 66.8 per cent for engineers, while Ms Steenbach said it remained difficult to source qualified boilermakers and heavy diesel fitters. Mr Wilmot said he had the capacity to put on another six or seven permanent employees, and was searching for four boilermakers himself. But he said workers were still often unwilling to move to Kalgoorlie-Boulder from the coast. There were more positive signs of economic green shoots in the Goldfields yesterday, after the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety revealed program of work applications in WA — required before exploration is undertaken on a mining tenement — climbed to their highest level in five years in 2017. The department received 608 applications in the December quarter and 2575 during 2017. That figure was 40 per cent higher than the 1799 applied for in 2016, and greater than the 2565 applications made in 2012, when the statistics were first compiled.
DMIRS strategic projects senior adviser Graham Cobby said the surge was driven by rising interest in gold and lithium exploration. Typically, a large proportion of WA’s drilling applications are made around the resource-rich Goldfields region
Politicians, investors and organizations like the United Nations have been nudging companies toward greater gender diversity. Since 2012, big companies in Australia have been required by law to provide annual updates on how many women they employ and their pay.
An upbeat article on the contribution women are making in the Pilbara region. From the article: “With more women in the workforce, mines perform better and with fewer injuries, said Mike Henry, president of BHP’s Australian operations. The company’s 10 most-diverse mines outperformed other sites by about 15% over the past three years in output and meeting maintenance schedules, he said
AFR:
Ken Brinsden, did not have to travel very far to be at the forefront of Western Australia’s emergent lithium industry.
As chief executive of Pilbara Minerals, Brinsden is in charge of bringing the large Pilgangoora lithium deposit in Western Australia’s Pilbara region into production.
But in an unusual coincidence, Pilgangoora is flanked by two of the iron ore mines that were under his watch in his previous role as managing director of Atlas Iron.
“I pinched myself actually when I first started travelling up with Pilbara and, standing on the top of the hill at Pilgangoora, I could see Abydos and I could see Wodgina,” Brinsden tells AFR Weekend.
Ken is a WASMA council member and Chair of the Finance Subcommittee