GEOVIA Champions

Ahmed is currently the Open Pit Superintendent for Centamin where he has been since 2009. Since his time there, he has been a part of the production planning team that has helped the site increase production. With nine years of extensive experience using GEOVIA software, he uses Surpac for design, MineSched for scheduling, and Whittle for Optimization. Ahmed has been involved in pit designs, dump designs, hauls roads designs, tailings storage facilities, stockpiles management, developing budgets and the LOM plans recently. Further, he has extensive knowledge and experience in production planning.

Alberto is a Senior Mining Engineer at Hecla mining where he is part of the technical services team based in Coeur d’Alene Idaho. He is responsible for providing technical advice and assistance to the corporate office and operating units. He has been using GEOVIA software, including Surpac and MineSched, for 7 years. His expertise ranges from mine planning (short and long range) and mine design for both underground and open pit. In the past 4 years, he has been part of project start-up where he has supported on a range of activities such as mine design, LOM plans and budgeting, including the implementation of mine planning procedures for both underground and open pit operations at a narrow vein ore deposit. He is enthusiastic about mining and centered to help colleagues deliver successful results.

Alex Whishaw is considered a group specialist for Surpac and its communication with GEOVIA systems and other products. Alex has spent much of his time working in numerous geological environments across the globe, broadly stretching from exploration, mining and production to a focus on Mineral Resource estimation. Throughout his 20-year geoscientific career, he has been exposed to a substantial number of mining software packages, and GIS and database systems. He uses his coding knowledge to streamline and integrate solutions for clients. His ability to clearly understand and articulate customer requirements from technical support to management decisions has been instrumental to assist peers and Clients alike. The GEOVIA community has enabled Alex to reach a high level of Surpac capability, so he feels that the time is right to return the favour and pass on his knowledge as a GEOVIA Champion. He wants to ensure the industry is able to meet a range of challenges, whilst adopting and developing cutting-edge technology with a pragmatic approach.

With 19 years of experience in underground mining, Alexandr works as Deputy Director of UGOK for Innovative Development at ALROSA. His career started as a drilling rig and loading machine operator. He then accessed managing positions for shifts and underground that lead him to become the Head for Underground Mining. Between 2009 and 2013, he sharpened his Surpac skills in fan design, blasting and ore mining, together with the Bernicat team. Today, he helps his colleagues to validate their production planning and ore quality management based on PCSLC software. To complete his GEOVIA skills, he is also a MineSched software user. Alexandr believes 3D tools are the future of the mining industry. Indeed, combining a high flow of information in a single integrated environment is critical for mining professionals to be more efficient.

Angelica Maria León Pedraza has training as a surveyor of Mines and Civil Engineer, with 19 years of experience in the Mining and Construction industry, covering services ranging from the collection of information in the field, to the processing, design and execution of mining planning. Angelica has participated in the development of various geological exploration processes, characterization of different minerals, reservoir modeling, pit designs, production in the exploitation front, photogrammetric and conventional topographic surveys, civil and road works execution throughout the country (Colombia). Angelica currently works as a raw materials engineer in a cement factory located in Sogamoso Boyacá, where she is responsible for optimizing the short-term planning of the different limestone mines operating in this area, guaranteeing the quantity and quality required for the process. Angelica has more than 6 years of experience in handling GEOVIA software: Surpac, Minex and MineSched.

Atanu has nine years of experience in the field of Exploration and Mining Geology over Pan India as well as a few experiences in South Africa and Nigeria. He attained his Master’s Degree in Applied Geology from the University of Calcutta in 2011 and started his career as a Geologist for a private firm. At present, he is a Senior Geologist for Atha Group. In this tenure, Atanu has gathered experience in various Geological software including Surpac and Minex and applying to those in the practical field with much success. His hobbies include cricket and painting.

Badri Narayan Das has more than nine years of experience in mine operations, managing mine projects in the areas of planning, production, project engineering, environment safety, training and resource planning and control. He is currently a Mining Engineer for Indian Metals & Ferro Alloys Limited where he specializes in Mine Planning and Design. His area of expertise includes Underground Mine Planning by using Surpac and mine Ventilation by using Ventsim software, and also extends his full support regularly in field implementation in underground stoping, development and Ventilation. In addition, Badri Narayan Das is an accomplished writer as two of his technical papers have been published in National conference on “Current Practices in Mining and Allied Industries”, organized by the Department of Mining Engineering in Association with Society of Mining and Exploration & Government College of Engineering, Keonjhar in the year 2017 and 2018. He has First Class Mines Manager’s Certificate of Competency (Unrestricted - Metal) and received from from “DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF MINES SAFETY” INDIA .

Barry Ndlovu is a mining engineer with over 15 years underground mining experience. He currently works for Rio Tinto as a Caving Specialist. Barry has been a GEOVIA GEMS and PCBC site expert since 2006 across multiple block caving sites including Palabora Lift I as a Superintendent Cave Management, Freeport DOZ and DMLZ as a Cave Management Technical Expert, Palabora Lift II Superintendent Mine Design and now Oyu Tolgoi Technical & Integrated Planning. He has also worked with us; Dassault Systèmes (formerly Gemcom) as a Senior Business Analyst in 2007, delivering training, technical services and support as well as consultation for GEOVIA GEMS and PCBC at various sites including Philex Mining Corporation’s Padcal site in the Philippines and Petra Diamonds (formerly De Beer’s) Finsch Mine in South Africa. His career highlights as a PCBC super user include developing meaningful multicultural relationships with operators, engineers, managers, all the way up to VPs and CEOs; working and interacting with Dr. Tony Diering and the Geovia Caving Business Unit team for the past 13 years in 4 continents and traveling to over 30 countries. Barry is keen to share his PCBC expertise and knowledge to the GEOVIA community and other caving practitioners and scholars.

Breno has more than 10 years of mine operational experience in major Brazilian iron ore companies including Gerdau and CSN, he is currently a Specialist Engineer at Vale. With more than 5 years of experience with our software, he is experienced in all stages of mine planning from scoping studies to operational plans, project financial evaluation, project management and environment technical studies in accordance with international regulations. Breno’s practical consulting experience is highlighted in his approach to mine planning, operations, and mineral economics in Runge Consulting. 

Celestin is a mining engineer with 21 years of experience in open pit mining and consulting experience in the mining industry. He currently works for Endeavour Mining as a Chief Mine Planning Engineer in West Africa. Celestin has worked with a wide range of commodities, producing mines around the world; Dassault Systèmes (formerly known as Gemcom) as a Senior Business Analyst in 2009, delivering training, technical services and support, Business Analysis at various sites in Africa and Europe. Celestin has used Whittle, Surpac and MineSched over the past fifteen years with exposure to pit optimization and scheduling (from the strategic planning perspective), Short to Long term production scheduling with MineSched and Pit designing, Blast designing, solid modelling, block modelling with Surpac. He is keen to share his software expertise and knowledge to the GEOVIA community, and to help colleagues deliver successful results.

Chanda Lwimba is a resource geologist with over 15 years experience mostly in the Zambian mining industry. His experience combines working on a number of mines (both underground and open pit) as a well as in mining consultancy. He was introduced to Surpac in 2007 while working for African Mining Consultants where he received specialist level training in the software. Prior to migrating to Surpac, Chanda was a datamine user. He is currently working at Mopani Copper Mines in perhaps the most complexly folded scenario on the Zambian Copperbelt. His main interests are in databases, statistics, variography and block modelling. He is especially passionate about seeing Geovia Surpac develop a module which will provide the first truly successful and 3D underground stope reconciliation solution. 

Chris is a Principal Mining Engineer with over 30 years’ experience in the Mining Industry. Chris has worked in Technical and Management roles utilising Surpac and Whittle (since the late 1980’s) and MineSched (not long after its inception) in many of these roles. Chris currently uses the full suite Surpac, MineSched and Whittle on open pit projects but is also looking at underground potential. Chris is eager to get more people to utilise the support system to drive Geovia into continuing to produce quality products at an affordable cost. He is also passionate about sharing knowledge gained from his years in the mining industry as well as to help increase knowledge and efficiencies for mining professionals within their operations.

Eli has over 11 years of experience covering mine survey and mine planning in both greenfield and brownfield mining operations. He is currently Mine Planner in Asanko Gold Inc for the Esaase Gold Project. He has used Surpac extensively in various mine survey and mine planning task over the years to achieve various desired outcomes and recently started using MineSched for short to medium term mine planning activities. He is open to learn and share knowledge gained over the years with the mining community to help build the knowledge base of professionals across the mining space.

Erwin Bocarro, is a Mining Engineer for Saudi Comedat Company Ltd. with more than 13 years of experience using GEOVIA software, namely Surpac. He also uses Minex for the Company’s various business requirements. Over the years, Erwin has attained a high degree of specialization in stitching of ore lithologies, Borehole Database management, Reserve/Resource Estimation and mentoring Mining Engineers, Geologist, Surveyors, Draftsman and other Technical staff. He also received his Second Class and First Class Mines Managers Certificate of Competency. Further, Erwin is presently a member of the PolyMAAG (Mining Engineers Association) in Goa and often presents at different forums and on many occasions to The Technical Personnel of The Indian Bureau of Mines on the use of Surpac Mine Planning Software. Some of his major accomplishments include preparing/updating fully stitched eight wireframe models, which he has also attained as his specialty, for local projects and fourteen Business Development projects overseas in Iron Ore / Coal / Limestone and Bauxite in detailed due diligence.

Ferrin has more than 10 years of experience in underground cave mining, working on large scale copper caving projects across several countries and continents. He is currently LOM Design & Caving Manager for the Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia, overseeing the design and production planning activities in the medium and long term horizons. He recalls the construction of a new UG super mine as a rewarding challenge as he was preparing for production, and looking after an orebody that has more than 90 years of caving resources. Prior to Oyu Tolgoi, Ferrin worked on the Resolution studies in the western USA, and helped the New Afton Mine in Canada finish construction and become the most productive UG hard rock mine in Canada. Throughout this time Ferrin has used the PCBC tools to plan short, medium, and long term production and adapt to the ever changing priorities to maintain cave health and optimise metal recovery. 

Starting as a field geologist in 2008, Franck is now the Modeling Geologist at ERG Africa. An enthusiastic Surpac user, he has received extensive training from the basics to specific areas such as Geological Modeling and Resource Estimation. Franck credits his efficiency in his workplace to Surpac’s capabilities, which allows him to perform quality assurance and control, geological and geostatistical analysis, resource modelling and estimation, reconciliation, and grade control. 

Güven Göktürk has more than 15 years of mining engineering experience in the metal mining industry, mainly in mine planning. He did his postgraduate degree in Management at the Western Sydney University in Australia and became an advanced user of Surpac (since 2007), Whittle and MineSched (since 2014). Whether overseas or in Turkey, he successfully developed Underground and Open Pit mine planning solutions and projects using GEOVIA products. Today he stands as a Technical Manager – Principal Mining Consultant at Anka. He is a professional member of Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining, UK. Besides, he is now passing his knowledge to his fellow colleagues while developing new skills in mining economics, general economics, finances, and investment.

Hildemaro is a Mining Engineer at ETK Inc, a subsidiary of Gran Colombia Gold, bringing 13 years of experience in the mining world - of which 3 years in drilling and blasting, and 10 years in mine planning – to a new project. During his career, Hildemaro evolved as Mine Planning Superintendent and Mine Manager in the largest open pit gold mine in Venezuela. In the last 4 years, he has been involved in the 3 major mining operations in Guyana. Among his achievements, Hildemaro demonstrated how to integrate GEOVIA solutions: Whittle in pit optimizations, Surpac in pit designs and MineSched in planning. In addition to that, he succeeded in expanding the reserves at Troy Resources Guyana, obtaining an increase in the life of the mine to 3 years.

A young dynamic professional with well-grounded experience of 2 years in Open Cast Mine Operations and Mine Planning using GEOVIA software. He graduated in Masters of Technology in Mining Engineering from the National Institute of Technology Rourkela, where he was awarded Silver Medal for Academic Excellence. He is responsible for giving assistance for the management of project and mining operations, as well as meeting the target of production and ensuring profit generation. Specifically, he works with coal and iron-ore and uses Minex and Surpac respectively to manage these deposits. His other areas of expertise include Modelling, Pit Design, point cloud and Scheduling. He is also interested in the field of Mine Digitalization.

Idrissa is a Mining Engineer with 15 years of experience in Open Pit and Underground Operations. He started his career in Uranium exploration and Development before moving to Uranium Mining Operations including all Mining Engineering works (Drill & Blast, Planning, Blending, Pit operations). Since 2012, Idrissa manages Resource & Reserve review and all works related to Mine Engineering and Technical at a bauxite mine. More precisely, he is leading the Engineering team to deliver on Resource Development and Modeling, Grade control works, Reserve Review, Drilling and Blasting and all required planning support for the day-to-day Operations and at Strategic level (LOM Plan, Mine Closure and Rehabilitation). In 2006 he started using GEOVIA Surpac and extended his technical skills with GEOVIA MineSched.

Isaac has over 13 years’ experience in the Bauxite and Gold industries and 11 years’ experience using GEOVIA software. Isaac has used Whittle, Surpac and MineSched over the past eleven years with exposure to pit optimization and scheduling (from the strategic planning perspective), Short to Long term production scheduling with MineSched and Pit designing, Blast designing, solid modelling, block modelling with Surpac. Isaac has helped with testing and feedback of GEOVIA softwares for many years and now joins as part of the official GEOVIA Champions with access to Beta testing programs. 

Jon is a Senior Mining Engineer at Rio Tinto, who has been primarily focusing on the Oyu Tolgoi Underground Project for the last 5 years. He started as a strategic mine planning engineer, and was responsible for life of mine production planning and optimization in PCBC during the Feasibility Study phase in 2016. He is currently part of the Technical and Integrated Planning team as a long range planner, and is responsible for delivering life of mine development plans and assisting in cost estimates. Prior to Oyu Tolgoi, he was part of the Pre-Feasibility Study team at Resolution Project in Arizona, where he gained his experience in Footprint Finder while assessing the best suitable mining design and configuration for the project. In total, he has over 6 years of experience with GEOVIA GEMS, PCBC and Footprint Finder modules. In addition to being an experienced user of the aforementioned software modules, he has been passionate about improving usability in PCBC by providing enhancement ideas to the developers.

Jyoti is a Senior Mining Engineer with five years of experience using Surpac in mine planning. Surpac is his expertise and he uses it widely for Pit and Stope Design. It is also used in his other daily mine operations such as volume calculation of daily development and comparing it with actual volume, designing the monthly development plan for both opencast depending on our volume requirements, haul road designing, dump rearrangement, steepening of pit among others. Jyoti’s responsibilities include preparing five years pit excavation design for their opencast mine, preparing the final dump plan for the dumping purpose of their mines, preparing the mining design for common boundary with the neighbour mine, and preparing the extraction process and equipment calculation via decline for their underground mine.

K. P. Mane, is a Geologist (M. Sc. Geology). He started his career in 2006 at M/s. ILPL (Fomento Resources), Goa and moved to a Manager role in NMDC Ltd. (Govt. Of India U/T) in 2015. He has been using GEOVIA Surpac Mine Planning Software since 2007, mainly for Iron Ore Deposits of (Goa & Karnatala) & Rock Phosphate Deposits (Rajasthan) in India. He is also a proficient GEOVIA Whittle & MineSched user. Krushnat specialized in solid modeling with perfectly stitched solids with different lithologies & Master in file base plotting. He is also well versed with Borehole Database Management, Reserve & Resource Estimation. Among his realizations, he prepared & submmited Mining Plans of different Mines  to Indian Bureau of Mines using Surpac MPS output & File Base Plots.  From 2008 to 2015, he worked under the mentorship of Mr. Erwin Bocarro (GEOVIA Champion). In turn, he is now providing support to Mining Engineers, Geologists & Surveyors for use of GEOVIA Surpac. 

Kunwar Brijendra PRATAP SINGH has a B. Tech in Mining Engineering from Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad. He is currently working as a Mining Engineer in NMDC Ltd, which is the 8th largest Iron Ore producer in the World. He has more than 5 years of on-site experience and he is currently working in Mine Planning division of NMDC Ltd. He is an expert user of Surpac, Whittle and MineSched. He mainly uses them for Pit design, operation scheduling and dump design but also in monthly development plan, updating of surface plan after survey, Volume & Tonnage calculation in Iron ore mine. 

Laxmi is a Post-Graduate Mining engineer from one of India’s prestigious institute IIT – (ISM) Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines). Prior to entering the mining field, he was an Assistant Professor teaching Rock Mechanics, Ground Control, Mine Ventilation, Drilling and Blasting Technology, Planning & Design of Underground and Open pit coal and metal mines. He is currently a Mine Engineer for JSW Steel Ltd. (Mines Division) where he works with the Planning and Designing team for iron ore deposits of Sandur Schist belt in Karnataka, India. Laxmi uses Surpac and Whittle to perform ore body modeling, pit optimization, geostatistical analysis, and reserve estimation techniques. 

Mario Baudino is a Mining Engineer with thirty years of experience in Open Pit Exploration, Exploitation and Closure projects. He developed his career as Mine Manager at Cementos Avellaneda S.A. belonging to Cementos Molins (Spain) and Cementos Votorantim (Brazil). (1993-2011). The company has licenses for the Surpac and Minesched software for Modeling and Mining Planning work. Mario worked as Associate Principal Consultant at SRK Consulting Argentina International Consulting Company that provides engineering and geosciences services for mining (2011-2017). He is currently Deputy to the General Directorate of Operations at Cementos Avellaneda S.A. (2017-today). He is also Associate Professor at the National University of San Luis-UNSL and the National University of Southern Patagonia - UNPA in Argentina. (1991-today). He has a Master in Planning and Management of the Environment and Natural Resources, Polytechnic University of Madrid (2007) and a Doctor of Mining, University of Oviedo, Spain (2017)

As graduate in mining engineering Mercedes joined Berkeley Minera, an uranium explorer with a portfolio of advanced projects in Spain. The company’s flagship “Salamanca Project” is a multi-pit operation with complex material flow, including ore lixiviation, pit backfill and different waste management.As a Mine Planning Engineer Mercedes was part of the team to go from exploration, FS to FEED. Specialized in Strategic Planning, she became the Mine Planning Superintendent. In 2019 Mercedes decided to evolve to a Development Engineer role in the Technology department at Boliden. She now supports several operations in the Mine Planning area, including strategic planning, and she’s currently responsible of Long Term Planning on site for the Aitik operation.

Michael Hutahaean is a mining engineer at Freeport McMoran, currently working at Freeport’s Underground Block Cave Mine in Colorado, USA. In 2019, after 11 years at Freeport Indonesia, he moved to the US Mine site. His mission is to transform and implement GEMS PCBC as a primary caving tool, replacing the previous software. During his experience in block cave mine, he has been involved in various cave management responsibilities including Short- and Long-term production planning, reserves calculation and reporting using GEMS-SIC/DOT/PCBC. He also provided optimized footprint geometry for future/new area and he has recently integrated GEOVIA GEMS SQL-database with ArcGIS and PowerBI software to enhance the ability of performance and cave monitoring of the mine. He is also actively engaged with GEOVIA teams and he has been actively participating as a beta tester for GEMS.

Michael (Mike) has more than 30 years of industry-based experience in Mining and Construction, covering Mine Technical services and Mine Management across many commodities, regions and project sizes. Being involved in Production, Planning, Exploration and Construction projects throughout Australia, Asia Pacific and European regions. Recently completing 6 years of contracts within the Philippines. Having used the GEOVIA software suite of products, Surpac, MineSched and Whittle since 1988, within this time spending 8 years as a Senior Product Specialist with Dassault Systèmes, delivering training, services and support for Surpac and MineSched in Design, Production and Schedule Planning while maintaining Environmental and Geological controls. Using analytical and methodical approach with communication skills and collaborative attitude to assist Mine operations, Schedules and Budgets.

With more than 10 years of experience using GEOVIA software and certified in Lean Six Sigma, Mohamed is an accomplished lean mining expert. He currently works as a Geology Manager at Reliance Heavy Industries (RHI), who offers a range of services to cover all the needs of the cement industry. Mohamed’s areas of knowledge include field exploration, detailed geological and geochemical assessment, audit assistance for cement and industrial raw materials for over 25 deposits, and mine planning of 13 deposits. Using his expertise, he has managed 16 drilling campaigns and investigation studies and also has written 16 technical reports concerning raw materials evaluation and development.

Mohamed is a Geologist with 15 years of experience in open pit mining for Industrial minerals, Iron ore and Gold. With 10 years using GEOVIA software including Surpac, Minex, Whittle and MineSched. His experience ranges from exploration project management, geological modeling, resource estimation and competent person reporting to strategic mine planning. Mohamed worked previously with ASEC Company for Mining (ASCOM) and Titan Cement Egypt. Currently, he applies his expertise as a Geostatistician for Maaden Waad Al Shamal Phosphate Company (MWSPC) in Saudi Arabia where he is based. Mohamed is a member and Chartered Professional of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM) and is also a Competent Person for the public reporting of the Mineral Resources for various commodities as defined by the JORC Code 2012 Edition. He was involved in resource estimation and evaluation of several mineral deposits in Middle East and Africa. Mohamed has postgraduate diploma in Open Pit Mining and Quarrying from MINES ParisTech and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport.

Mohamed is an experienced geologist with six years’ experience using GEOVIA software. Currently, he works as a Senior Mine Geologist for Allied Gold. His areas of expertise are resources and grade control, as well as estimation and valuation of mineral resources. Durand has received training for GEOVIA software and uses Surpac, GEMS, and MineSched continuously for his role.

Moriba began his career as a Drilling and Blast Supervisor for mines for Crew Gold Guinea Corporation (Mining Society of Dinguiraye) in 2006, where he eventually advanced to becoming the Junior Engineer of Mines in 2008. From then on, he has held various mining engineer positions for many mines, including Norgold Guinea and Moatize Mine Coal in Mozambique where he was the Senior Mining Engineer. Currently, Moriba is the Mine Planning Engineer for Bel Air Mining, where he uses Surpac regularly in his role. 

Nadir’s is Senior Resource Geologist with more than 10 years’ experience in Using GEOVIA Surpac, Whittle, & MineSched in geological Database management, modeling, geostatistics, resource reserve estimation, and production scheduling he is signing off as qualified person (QP) for gold projects. Currently Work in Mineral resource Management Department (MRM) Sr. Operation Director office in Ma’aden (Saudi Arabian Mining company), As MRM Resource Modeler Direct responsible for All Ma’aden gold & base Metal Mine Sites & new projects in development, maintenance and updating of the mine’s resource block models and 3D resource databases. Responsible for updating and providing industry standard documentation of annual Mineral Resources & reconciliation and assist in the determination and optimization extraction of Mineral Reserves. Provide services to operations, addressing both underground and open pit requirements, and providing leadership within the Geology Department, particularly as it relates to estimation of mineral resources, reserves and optimizing extraction of mineral resources. 

Navrit Grover is a geologist by training. He has done his masters from University of Delhi and has seven years of work experience in reconnaissance, exploration and mine planning of coal and various mineral deposits in India and Indonesia. He holds a grounded experience in using GEOVIA software i.e. Minex and Surpac and has a sound knowledge of business development activities. Currently, he is working as an Assistant Manager -Geology of the Business Development Team in Sainik Mining and Allied Services Limited, which is one of India’s major mining companies working for NTPC, SAIL and various CIL’s subsidiaries. Navrit is also an accomplished writer as he is the author of the book “Geomorphic Evolution of Landscape in Tectonically Active Area”. 

Paolo has more than 11 years of experience in open pit mining. He started his career in the Philippines as a Drill and Blast Foreman, exposing himself to the operational side of Mining. Then he moved to a mine in Mongolia in 2012, where he became part of the engineering team, and learned about Surpac and MineSched. He is currently working as a Senior Mining Engineer for one of Endeavour’s Gold Mine in Burkina Faso.  His main duties include mentoring the Junior engineers and Medium to Long term planning. Paolo’s specialization is scheduling using MineSched. He is excited to share the knowledge he gained throughout the years of using GEOVIA mining software.

Patricio is Planning and Project Lead at Carola Coemin Mining Group (Tierra Amarilla, Chile). He has more than 5 years of experience in underground mining projects exploited by the sublevel stoping method. After graduating from the Atacama´s university as a mining engineer, he started his career as a Junior Engineer in 2017 at Carola Coemin, reaching his current position. Patricio actively participated in the creation and standardization of Mine Planning, more precisely the Strategic Mine Planning and Long-Term Mine Planning using GEOVIA Surpac, Minesched and Isight. Among his achievements, he actively contributed to a production increase from 120 to 240 ktpm by leading the Design and Planning of the Carola Mine. The new target is to double production again and position as the largest copper mining company in Chile.

Phindile Phalatse works as a Senior Geodata Geologist for Exxaro at the largest coal beneficiation complex in the world. Her over 9 years’ experience is predominantly in the coal mining industry within South Africa. Exploration, data management and resource modelling are her areas of expertise. She utilizes the GEOVIA Minex package to model the mine’s resources resulting in both structural and qualities estimations. Highlights to her career include being an integral part of the centralized database project and my continued efforts to optimize the data manipulation process, modelling new mining configurations to assess the feasibility of different mining strategies and resolving quality data issues (standardization, cumulating and compositing) using Minex’s coal washability function. She is eager to participate in the Champions to not only broaden her skills base but, also to collaborate with GEOVIA to optimiZe the software packages where possible. 

Reuben Mwanza is Superintendent - Planning - Mining Operations at Mopani Copper Mines. He has experience in underground excavations, design of drill and blasting patterns, geotechnical investigation of mining areas underground, and development of cost-effective mining alternatives. He has over ten years of underground mining experience in copper and cobalt mines. His role in mine technical services is to oversee the mine planning function so as to help mining operations to achieve production targets safely and economically. Reuben is also responsible for the generation of life-of-mine plans as well as in charge of long-term mine planning for the mine he is working at. He is also responsible for generating annual budgets for the mine with regards to production volumes and development meters to be mined to support the production volume. He extensively uses Surpac for underground mine design and ring design for stoping, he also uses MineSched development and stoping schedules. 

Roger has 40 years of practical and management experience in mineral exploration and the mining of a wide range of commodities and mineralisation styles. He began his career as a geologist with major companies in Australia and has since held global, regional and country leadership positions with mining companies and firms providing technical products and solutions to the mineral resources industry. His extensive experience includes projects in Australia, Zambia, Congo-Brazzaville and South-East Asia in which he led or was part of exploration teams in the discovery, definition and evaluation of world-class mineral projects. He has also been accountable for business development and sales of services based, technical solutions to mining and exploration companies in all global geographies.

Setiawan Nugroho is a mining engineer with 14 years of experience at Freeport Mc MoRan, where he started as a Dispatcher. He has evolved in a multi-cultural environment working closely with mine technical services, mine operation, mine maintenance and manpower groups to assist in optimizing mine to mill process. Among his accomplishments, he implemented a Power BI dashboard, managed multiple analytical tools using GEMS PCBC output on MS excel platform, helped optimize production schedule and increase metal gain for a mine approaching its closing period, and lastly developed & maintained a pro-active metal reconciliation method for 3 different block caving mines. Today he develops and supervises 3 groups (10 Engineers & 18 Crews), which are database reporting, production long range and draw control. His mission is to provide a 3 month to 5 year production planning for 3 different block caving mines.

With more than 15 years of rich experience in using GEOVIA softwares for various commodities (Copper, Cobalt, Iron, Limestone, Bauxite and Manganese etc.), Suryanshu is an accomplished individual in the mining industry. He implemented his knowledge in Surpac, Mineshed and Whittle for computerized Resource evaluation, Geostatistics, Mine planning, design, mine Optimization and Scheduling at various leading mining companies in India and overseas. Suryanshu continually shares his skills and expertise on information technology application in mining industry to mining and geological fraternity globally. He has published over 30 technical papers in international and national level journals and seminars. Further, he has been recognized as a distinguished mining engineer in India through receiving various awards such as Eco Friendly Mining Award, SRG Informational Technology Award, Prof HR Anireddy Memorial award and Sitaram Rungta Memorial award.

Swasthik is a passionate mining engineer with specialties in Planning and Design of mines using GEOVIA software including Surpac, Whittle, and MineSched. He graduated in Bachelor of Technology in Mining Engineering from the National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal where he was awarded the Neyveli Lignite Corporation Sponsored Gold Medal for Best Outgoing Student of the Institute. He worked as Junior Manager of the Mining Division in JSW Steel Limited, one of India’s largest integrated steel manufacturers, where he implements his knowledge in various disciplines including Resource Modelling, Pit Optimization, and Scheduling.

Tiékoura is a Mine Geologist for Syama Gold Mines (Resolute Mining Ltd.) conducting research through observations, field analysis, defining mining areas, assuring productivity, ore quality, and worker safety. He is responsible for more than 30 people in his team, along with several trainees, and manages the computer data of the Geology Department. Passionate about discovering new future career achievements, he is involved in the trade union to improve the living conditions of about 500 permanent workers.  With seven years of experience using Surpac, he is knowledgeable in the areas of mine geology planning, design, control, interpretation and optimization of the geological work of the mine, mapping, modelization, compositing, and simulations. 

Wikus is a Post-Graduate Geologist from the University of Johannesburg with more than 10 years’ experience in COAL. He started his career at Sasol Mining as an Exploration Geologist, working in the Freestate and later the Waterberg coalfields of South Africa. After a short stint as an Exploration Geologist he joined Sasol Mining’s Geology Information Management team, here he was responsible for creating various seam and interbedded coal models using mainly Minex structure and resource modelling and Surpac to investigate possibilities of modelling sill and dyke structures. Wikus developed TCL scripts to complete repetitive tasks in Minex. As the current Geology Manager of the Geology Information Management Department, his department oversees the modelling process across all Sasol Mining’s operations and also upholds the integrity of the Geological Database (mainly using SQL but investigating python and R to expand functionality to users).

Yevgeniy is a specialist in Mining engineering with more than 14 years of international progressive experience, covering Mine Planning, Geology and Surveying areas. He has had the opportunity to work in various environments, in open pit and underground operations. He also took part to projects in West Africa and CIS, dealing with a diverse range of commodities including precious metals, iron ore, copper, coal and uranium. Yevgeniy has an Engineering Degree in Mining and he is also an expert user of GEOVIA software, such as Whittle, MineSched and Surpac. Married with two children, he speaks both English and Russian (his mother tongue). His domains of expertise include mining project evaluation, Whittle optimizations, mine design, strategic and medium term planning, and Reserve estimation (JORC, NI43-101).