A successful mining project takes careful planning, expertise, and execution. With increasing focus on environmental regulations, corporate responsibility, political pressure, and more, engaging a mining consultant has become a practical solution to navigating the complex mining industry while optimizing project performance.
In this article, we discuss what mining consultants do as well as some of their main areas of expertise.
WHAT DO MINING CONSULTANTS DO?
Mining consultants offer expert services to support existing or prospective mining projects. They provide knowledge, expertise, guidance, and coordination related to mining strategy and operations. The goal of mining consultants is to provide value through such services as:
- Optimizing operations to increase the profitability of a project
- Increasing project efficiency
- Evaluating opportunities and risks to create a more strategic path forward
- Navigating regulatory requirements to operate within state and federal laws
- Improve responsibility through environmental and corporate responsibility insights and recommendations
Mining consultants typically specialize in a particular category of expertise, such as operations, mine engineering, geology, environmental impact, or regulatory requirements. Mining services companies will often have specialists in multiple areas so they may offer full-service consulting for every stage of a project’s growth.
COMMON AREAS OF MINING CONSULTING
Mining consulting encompasses a wide range of services. The services provided depend on the project needs and goals, as well as the consultant’s area of expertise. In general, consulting services can be offered for any aspect of a mining or geology project that may benefit from expert insight or experience. Some of the most common consulting services include:
- Exploration Services. Mining consultants often offer exploration services for prospective or existing mines. This can help inform ongoing strategy or provide preliminary exploration for claim staking, mapping, or other early mining needs.
- Engineering & Design. Using a mining consultant during the design and engineering process of a mine can help to save costs, reduce risks, and provide a higher level of strategy and insight that can increase mine performance. Consultants can also help to coordinate, manage, and implement mid-project solutions to improve mine efficiency and growth.
- Operational Optimization. Consultants who specialize in operations can offer expertise to help optimize your mine’s performance and value. This may include adjustments to processes, resource optimization, opportunity analysis, trade-off studies, risk analysis and mitigation, and more.
- Geophysical Services & Reporting. A mining consultant with geophysical expertise can help provide critical information with studies, such as resistivity and induced polarity (IP), ground penetrating radar (GPR), very low frequency (VLF), and more. This information can be used for feasibility studies, N1 43-101 reporting, property reporting, strategy optimization, and mapping.
BENEFITS OF USING A MINING CONSULTING COMPANY
While independent mining consultants are available for hire, many mining companies choose to use a mining consulting services company. There are a few reasons mining companies choose to go with a consulting company over independent contractors:
LARGER RANGE OF EXPERTISE
Since mining consulting companies are made up of multiple consulting experts, they often have a wider range of collective expertise than a single individual. This is particularly useful for mining projects when the company may anticipate needing additional consulting in the future since it reduces the need to prospect and vet a new mining consulting each time a new need arises.
GREATER STABILITY
Since a mining consulting company has multiple experts on staff, it usually provides additional stability. If a consultant isn’t the right fit or decides to leave the project for any reason, a different consultant within the organization is typically able to pick up the project without additional downtime or prospecting.
ROBUST RESOURCES
Finally, a mining consulting company may have access to additional resources that are not always available to individual consultants. For instance, Rangefront’s consultants are supported by a team of geologists, field crews, a network of contract laborers, equipment rentals, and more.
MINING CONSULTANT JOB DESCRIPTION
Since mining consultants usually specialize in a certain specialty, your job description summary or overview may include the following:
{Company} is seeking an experienced mining consultant specializing in {operations, mine engineering, geology, environmental impact, and/or regulatory requirements}.
GENERAL DUTIES
- Perform operational analysis and optimization of mining and geological activities.
- Prepare schedules, reports, and estimates as needed.
- Assist with planning of staff resources.
- Design solutions to challenges.
- Develop designs, modeling, and mapping to analyze and report mine performance to stakeholders.
- Analyze and improve mine safety processes.
- Assist in business development of the region.
- Raise visibility and profile of the business in the region.
- Design and implement development of systems, facilities, equipment, etc.
- Examine maps, deposits, rock chip sampling, core drilling, and geotechnical reports to determine location, size, and accessibility of potential deposits.
- Prepare technical reports, including JORC, NI 43-101, PERC, SME, S-K 1300, SAMREC, etc.
- Perform inspections and analysis for risk, performance, and safety improvements.
- Supervise, train, and manage personnel.
REQUIREMENTS
Depending on the expertise you seek, you may include requirements such as:
- 8-10+ years mining leadership.
- Strong technical, leadership, and problem-solving skills.
- Demonstrated project management experience in mining ranging from permitting and operations to mine closure.
- Execution and leadership in the analysis, evaluation, and interpretation of mining and geologic data and development of conceptual models.
- Comprehensive knowledge of principles and concepts of surface mining, underground mining, etc.
- Comprehensive knowledge of mining operations.
- Previous success in mine design, production, and optimization.
- Proven success in supervising and mentoring staff.
- Bachelor of Science degree in geoscience from a recognized university; a Master’s or Ph.D. Considered a strong asset.
- Technical communication skills as well as strong interpersonal, written, and verbal communication skills.
- Ability to work within a team environment.
- Familiarity with commercial software packages such as Leapfrog, Acquire, MineSight, Deswik, Vulcan.
- Must be able to communicate effectively with all levels of staff and management.
- Understanding of {Company’s} processes and corporate values a plus.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
As part of the mining consultant job description, you will also want to provide a description of your company, resources, and the benefits your potential consultant can expect if they are brought on with your company. Include specifics such as location, size and stage of operation, number of direct reports, potential or found deposits, etc.
If you are looking for an in-house consultant or mining engineer, it can be helpful to utilize a mining staffing company as they will have a deep network of potential experts as well as tried-and-true recruitment and interview methods. Utilizing an outsourced mining consultant can also be a beneficial way to utilize specialization in multiple areas.
Talk to an Expert
Are you interested in learning more about how a consulting expert can optimize your project’s performance? Click the button below to speak with an expert.
This post was originally published in March 2022 and has since been updated to expand information and relevance.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BRIAN GOSS
President, Rangefront Mining Services
Brian Goss brings over 20 years of experience in gold and mineral exploration. He is the founder and President of Rangefront, a premier geological services and mining consulting company that caters to a large spectrum of clients in the mining and minerals exploration industries. Brian is also a director of Lithium Corp. (OTCQB: LTUM), an exploration stage company specializing in energy storage minerals and from 2014 to 2017, he fulfilled the role of President and Director of Graphite Corp. (OTCQB: GRPH), an exploration stage that specialized in the development of graphite properties. Prior to founding Rangefront, Brian worked as a staff geologist for Centerra Gold on the REN project, as well as various exploration and development projects in the Western United States and Michigan. Brian Goss holds a Bachelor of Science Degree with a major in Geology from Wayne State University in Michigan.
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