October 2017

THE MINING MILLENNIAL – MEC’s model for the future

October 25, 2017

As much as I hate to admit it, I’m a millennial. I am driven by the desire to feel like I’m contributing, adding value, respected. All admirable qualities, but as anyone who has employed a millennial knows, there is a down side. I, like many of my cohort, have left employers in the lurch, just as I’m starting to fit into their grand plans, I’ve gone and put my notice in, like a 25^th minute red card, forcing a backline reshuffle.

MEC supports Ocsober

October 23, 2017

Our MEC General Manager, David Plowman, is giving the booze the boot this month to help Aussie kids.

What I have Learnt From The Last 1,000 Interviews

October 9, 2017

Owning and leading a business for over 10 years has taught me a thing or two about interviews and has certainly sharpened my intuition for picking the best candidates. During the 10 years we have hired over 150 people, interviewed around 1,000 people face to face and screened at least 5,000 candidates. So what has been so special about the 3% of people that have applied to us that we actually employed?

NPV trap

October 6, 2017

Net present value (NPV) is the universally accepted tool for measuring the value of a mining venture. We spend a lot of effort maximizing the NPV by changing all sorts of parameters. Essentially, NPV just converts future cash flows back into today's dollars by compounding the discount rate ( think interest rate ) into the future. NPV discounts early cash flow less and later cash flow more. Usually, any cash flows that are more than 15 years away are attributed negligible value in today's dollars.

Open Cut Metals – Life of Mine Planning

October 5, 2017

MEC was engaged by ASX-listed Company operating an open cut metal mine in northern Europe to undertake a full review of their deposit and to produce a Life of Mine Plan (LOM). The goal of the project was to produce a plan that was to be both sustainable and achievable, while maximising economical mining reserves and confidence.

Lunch and Learn: Envirosuite

October 3, 2017

Join us for a free lunch and learn session with Andrew Shek, Strategy and Business Development Asia Pacific-Envirosuite. EnviroSuite is an innovative, proven technology platform developed to facilitate the management and rapid interpretation of environmental data across water, air and noise. EnviroSuite won the Australian Technology Competition in 2015. It is an integrated, cloud-based system for aggregating, analysing and displaying real time environmental data in a simple, intuitive, portable interface. Used by a wide range of industries and organisations globally, EnviroSuite helps to proactively manage environmental outcomes and risk using high resolution weather forecasting, real time sensor systems, blast and dispersion modelling.

Championing sustainable diversity in the workplace

October 3, 2017

BHP’s commitment to seeking out excellence in mining and setting itself an aspirational goal of achieving a 50/50 gender balance by 2025 company-wide, has recently reached an impressive milestone. New figures show that women now make up a fifth of its 26,000-strong workforce, an increase of 3 percentage points in the year to June 2017 (Hume, 2017). In light of this inspiring achievement, MEC General Manager of Strategy and Business Development, and Committee Chair of Women in Mining and Resources Queensland (WIMARQ), Maria Joyce reflects on not only the benefits of a diverse workforce, but also the challenges that are likely to accompany these ambitious aims.