Professional

Western Areas is an Australian-based nickel sulphide explorer and producer whose core asset is the 100% owned Forrestania Nickel Project, located 400km east of Perth.  

The primary discovery at Forrestania - Flying Fox - is one of the highest grade nickel deposits in the world and the Company produced 8,000 tonnes of nickel in the 1st full year of production at the site.

Western Areas plans to develop five mines at the project by 2011, for a targeted production of 35,000 tonnes per annum of nickel, including:

GR Engineering Services has been provided a letter of intent by Catalpa Resources to enter into a supply agreement to refurbish and construct the Big Bell processing facility on site at its Edna May Gold Project, located near Westonia in Western Australia.

Conveniently, the project is just 3 hours or 300km by road from Perth, or half way between Perth and Kalgoorlie, which is ideally situated to be serviced by both centres.

GR Engineering Services (GRES) is an engineering consulting and contracting organisation providing process engineering design and construction services to the resources and mineral processing industry.

Headquartered in Perth, GRES has been selected to refurbish and construct the Big Bell processing facility at Catalpa's Edna May Gold Project near Westonia in Western Australia.

Services provided by GRES include:

Trident Offshore are specialist marine contractors and consultants to the offshore oil and gas industry. The company is based in Aberdeen, Scotland and operates throughout the world.

They currently manage and perform in excess of 200 rig moves per year world-wide, making them one of the most experienced operators in the sector.

Despite more than 11,000 job losses in the mining industry since June 2008, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) and the Minerals Council of Australia this week announced they both remain confident of improvement in the medium term.

Whilst job losses have reduced the number of mine workers in the country to about 130,000, this is still significantly more than the 80,000 workers in the industry five years ago when the boom first started.  In other words, job losses are coming off a high base. 

Topical this week was the news that the Government will cut the 2008-09 permanent skilled migration program by 14% to protect local jobs. 

Specific changes include:

We recently featured an inside view of Woodside and this week they confirmed an anticipated boost to their workforce by 1000 as a result of the $12 billion Pluto project in what will be Western Australia's single biggest recruitment drive.

Major subcontractors on the LNG project near Karratha such as Transfield Worley and Clough (for maintenance) and Foster Wheeler Worley (for construction) are mainly seeking pipefitters, boilermakers, welders, riggers, crane operators, mechanical fitters, electricians, storepersons and trades assistants to build the onshore facility.

WHEN YOU THINK ‘RESOURCES JOBS', DO YOU ONLY THINK OF TRUCK DRIVERS AND GEOLOGISTS? 

Although the resources sector does require these positions, they make up a minute amount of the extensive job opportunities that the industry provides.  So:

Today our media is filled with messages of doom and gloom for our Industry, with around 500 mine sites around Australia that are "closed". Disaster for some stakeholders, but, for a job seeker, this does not have to be all bad; this is an employment opportunity in itself.  Mine closures do not happen "easily" and for those placed in "Care and Maintenance", there are companies that specialise in this service that are now experiencing a skills shortage.

Mining Plus has been established since early 2006 and provides integrated, innovative and financially viable mining solutions from pre feasability studies, mine design, equipment selection, to rehabilitiation and mine closure.  Their work covers underground mining, open pit mining, civil and earth works, financials and budgets, project management and resource managing in all commodities including gold, nickel, lead and zinc, diamonds, uranium, copper, iron ore...