Team Member Profiles

Name: Elizabeth Davis
Engineering Discipline: Chemical
Position: Graduate

My first rotation on the IPL graduate program was at Phosphate Hill, located1000km west of Townsville. I worked an 8/6 FIFO roster, I enjoyed working at site on weekends as I got more work done with less people around and really get the opportunity to get to know the people on my roster.

I enjoyed life on site, there are plenty of activities on after work and not having to cook or clean while you are out there is a bonus. It is also a good opportunity to go out and see the real Australian outback; there are plenty of walks and hills around camp so I could see what it's really like out there.

I was initially based in process Development team, working on different projects throughout the plants. I would develop my work plan then complete trial work where I would test out new operating strategies in the plants and then assess how the trial went.

I then transferred into an operations role in the granulation plant; in this role I spent a lot of time in the plant with the operators, talking to them and learning about the process in detail. Each day I would look at the previous day's production, assess how we went and then investigate when things went wrong. I would also work on projects that needed to be completed in the granulation plant on a larger scale than day to day issues, to either increase production, reliability or ensure the plant was safe to run.

Name: Jon Garnaut
Engineering Discipline: Electrical
Position: Vacation Student

The highlight of the vacation program was the hands on experience on site, seeing the theoretical side of engineering learnt in university transformed into practical applications.

A typical day at Phosphate Hill involves waking up at 4:40am to have brekkie in the mess before getting on the bus to site by 5:40am. We initially a meeting at 6am sharp to find out if anything played up during the night shift and update the relevant people of any problems or progress in your assigned project. The rest of the day is spent working alongside other engineers on my project or resolving any of the issues which occurred the previous night.

Working in a chemical process plant, like Phosphate Hill, which has everything from mining operations to gas and acid plants you become involved and deal with every facet of electrical, process and mechanical engineering. This knowledge and experience is priceless and hard to come by in many other industries.