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| Mining
Engineer -
Murray Smith
B.Eng. (Mining), MAusIMM, MIEI, ASIA |
Mining Engineer - Lisheen Mine |
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I graduated
from the Western Australian
Scool of Mines at the end of
1993 with a Bachelor of Engineering
(Mining). I took a mining engineering
position with Newcrest Mining
NL, an Australian gold mining
company. I was put through a
structured graduate training
programme during my first year
of employment, in order to gain
exposure to all areas of the
gold mining industry, working
at Telfer Gold Mine in the depths
of the Great Sandy Desert in
northern Western Australia.
The mine produced ore from both
open cut and underground operations,
and I chose to concentrate on
the underground. |
Five years at the
mine gave me an excellent understanding
of all facets of underground mining
engineering. From Telfer I transferred
within the company to another
underground gold mine near Kalgoorlie
WA, where I spent a year prior
to arriving in Ireland at the
end of 1999 to start work at Lisheen
Mine in the Technical Services
Department.
Lisheen Mine is an underground
zinc and lead mine, and presented
an entirely different set of challenges
to those I'd previously faced
working in the gold industry.
The water shortage problems of
Western Australia were no longer
evident, but rather how to deal
with the large water inflows underground
became a priority!
The Technical Services Dept. at
Lisheen covers mine planning &
design, geotechnical & ground
support, geology and survey requirements.
The department works closely with
the Production Dept. to optimise
designs & schedules, and to
improve efficiencies whilst maintaining
a safe working environment. My
own role within the department
has mainly encompassed the detailed
design of underground excavations
within one of the two
orebodies at Lisheen, using a
dedicated mine design software
package. A combination of office
time and underground time, to
ensure that mining carried out
adheres to issued designs, ensures
job variety. |
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