Job Description
Job Description
Job Title: Sr. Drill and Blast Engineer
POSITION PURPOSE
Reporting to the Mine Operations Superintendent, the Sr. Drill and Blast Engineer is primarily responsible for drill and blast design and performance.
REPORTING TO:
Mine Operations Superintendent
COLLABORATING WITH
(Key departments, External Groups):
Internal:
- Work primarily with Mine Technical Services, Mine Operations, Crushing Operations.
External:
- Drilling Contractors
- Blasting Contractors
PEOPLE REPORTING TO THIS POSITION
(Name of Position):
- Drill and Blast Technicians
POSITION RESPONSIBILITIES
- Manage and ensure all employees and contractors are working in compliance with all Pinto Valley Mine and MSHA safety guidelines and procedures.
- Ensure all activities are compliant with Company policies and procedures, federal and state regulations as well as local regulatory agencies.
- Strong collaboration and communication of plans and designs with various stakeholders.
- Supervise and control the design of the drilling platforms, ensuring compliance with safety and operation standards.
- Control the Blasting Protocol, evacuation plans, schedules, generation of meetings and attendees at blasting meetings.
- Control compliance by the contractors and vendors which PV is interacting in D&B matters.
- Control the development of the drilling patterns designs according to the technical definition in each blasting unit. (diameter, depth, etc.)
- Ensure the optimal fragmentation of the different materials destined for the processes established in our operation (leach, concentrator, waste, waste for buttress purpose, etc.).
- Control and optimize the usage of drilling consumables.
- Manage teams overseeing blasting and production drilling operations.
- Ensure the execution of the blasting warning and communication system.
- Manage the annual budget process of the resources for drilling and blasting services of the mine.
- Comply and respect the operating, risk prevention, environmental management and quality standards defined in the mine department.
- Manage assigned contracts by monitoring safety activities, expenses and service delivered.
- Ensure the QAQC of drilling and blasting.
- Manage the concept of continuous improvement by measuring and controlling management indicators, such as: Drilling effectiveness (ton/feet), blasting powder factor (gr/ton), utilizations and productivity of drilling fleets, over drilling, supplies expenditures, useful life and expenses on assigned contracts.
- Perform tests that allow us to improve our processes.
- Generate and control the budget and short-term budget.
- Develop technical studies to ensure high performance of drill and blast process in a sustainable way, considering fragmentation, fines percentages, vibration analysis and damage criteria as PPV critical, pre-split filter, among others.
- Connecting with Geotechnical engineer to develop modeling blasting units in the ore deposit.
- Participate actively in the mine sequence review in different scope of mine planning process, ensuring feasibility and acceptable achievable level of this sequence, considering:
- Different types of blast (trim, production, secondary and pre-split),
- Typical stages of the D&B process to mine properly (Patter dimensions, timing to generate patterns, timing to drill patterns, blasting and loading interaction).
POSITION REQUIREMENTS
Knowledge
- 5 to 10 years of mining experience.
- Mine Engineering or similar degree.
- Knowledge of drill-blast-load-haul open pit mining sequence is preferred.
- Prior experience in a copper operation strongly preferred.
Key Competencies / Skills
- Experience with MineStar or similar fleet management system.
- Experience with SAP or similar purchasing program.
- Prior exposure to mine planning software (Vulcan, Minesight) is preferred.
- Prior exposure to blast loading and timing software (ViewShot, Delta E) is preferred.
- Strong computer skills with Microsoft Suite (Excel, Word, Outlook, etc.)
- Strong attention to detail.
- Quick learner with proactive mindset.
- Proven ability to identify problems and devise solutions.
- Excellent communication, analytical, management and problem-solving skills are required.
- Ability to speak, comprehend, read, and write English fluently.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
- This role is generally 50% office environment and 50% field environment.
- Must have ability to stand and walk for short durations, including walking up and down stairs and across uneven surfaces.
- Must have ability to kneel, crawl, stoop, and squat, occasionally in confined spaces.