Mining Engineer

Henry Budd

Rio Tinto Coal short-term planning superintendent David Bennett didn’t follow the typical route to become a mining engineer. While most people go straight to university to study mining engineering, after finishing high school Bennett began driving heavy machinery.

“I did a lot of that on civil projects building highways, sporting ovals and shopping centres,” he says.

After eight years, he decided he wanted to work with larger machines in the mining industry.

But after several years working at Rio Tinto Coal Warkworth mine in the Hunter Valley, driving bulldozers and front-end loaders, he entered the planning department on a 12-month secondment.

“At that stage they wanted to get some people out of operations and into the planning department, just as a way of getting some people with hands-on experience in the mine in there,” he says.

“After all those years I dodged going to uni it was time to step up and get some qualifications just to complete the learning curve.”
As the short-term planning superintendent, Bennett and his team of engineers and surveyors plan the daily operation of the mine for the next three months.
Each year the mine produces 15 million tonnes of coal.

“We plan the advancement of the mine so we expose and mine the most amount of coal,” he says.

“It involves a series of meetings with planning engineers and key personnel to discuss performance and look at the plan going forward.”

At the end of his secondment, a full-time position was offered but Bennett was rejected.

“The person who got the role actually knocked it back and that opened the door for me,” he says.

Bennett then began a diploma of Mining Engineering at the University of NSW which he completed part-time.

While many mining graduates complain they don’t learn enough practical knowledge at university, Bennett found the experience to be just the opposite.

“When I went to uni I found I learnt a whole lot about the mining industry that I didn’t know before,” he says. “It opened my eyes to a lot of different types of mining operations like underground mines and open-cut mining.”

Qualifications: Mining planners usually have a degree in mining engineering. The University of Western Sydney, the University of Newcastle and the University of NSW all offer mining engineering courses.

Course description: The UNSW Bachelor of Engineering (Mining) is four years full-time. The UNSW website says it includes: a mixture of lectures, tutorials, laboratory exercises and demonstrations and field trips.

Industrial training is also a component of the course where the student gets a closer view of the various processes at a mine site. The course looks at the fundamentals of mining science and engineering before looking at mining projects and design and planning.

The Bachelor of Engineering (Mining) is also offered as part of several combined degrees.

Assumed knowledge: While there are no prerequisites for the Mining Engineering program, students still at school should study maths extension one and physics. Bridging courses are available for students who have not taken these mathematics subjects.

Cost: $7118 per annum government supported.
From the inside: Rio Tinto Coal short-term planning superintendent David Bennett says despite the mining boom being well documented there are still plenty of jobs available.

“Finding good people is difficult and … there isn’t exactly a flood of people knocking on our door,” he says.
* More information: www.mining.unsw.edu.au