Student Journal - Melbourne Student Chapter - Materials Science and Engineering Students Vacation Work
The summer of 2024/2025 presented an opportunity for me to work under Agnico Eagle at their Fosterville Gold Mine as a part of their Processing team. Working as an operator, my days were longer and more tiring than usual, but somehow more enjoyable than usual. I worked a 7 days on, 7 days off roster across 3 months, completing 12 hours each shift on a rotation of day shifts and night shifts. Just this alone was a learning experience in itself.
As an operator, your work revolved around what part of the processing plant you were assigned to look after, with the end goal being to maintain the circuit and fix anything that went wrong. There are many parts of the circuit, including crushing, grinding, flotation, BIOX, carbon-in-leach (CIL), heated leach and gold room. Most of my summer was spent learning the ins and outs of the BIOX circuit, which happens to be the only running BIOX processing plant in Australia. It comes before CIL, and strips gold of sulphide minerals via bacterial oxidation. I was also able to spend time on CIL, heated leach and circuits related to the mill, all of which required frequent measurements out in field.
Figure 1: View from the BIOX tanks
During my time at Fosterville, I have learnt plenty about the processes of the plant, sampling techniques, hazard identification, safety requirements of a mine, and hosing (lots of hosing!). The people who I have been able to learn from have been nothing short of amazing and encouraging, making it the best possible transition from the university classroom to the mine. This vacation program has been a fantastic experience to broaden my understanding of processing and will aid in my progress as an engineer. By getting hands on and seeing first-hand how things operate, I feel better equipped entering the industry beyond university. This experience is incomparable to what you achieve inside a classroom, and I hold great appreciation and gratitude to Fosterville Gold Mine for this opportunity.