Lead Underground Mining Studies
Australia
About BHP
At BHP we support our people to grow, learn, develop their skills and reach their potential. With a global portfolio of operations, we offer a diverse and inclusive environment with extraordinary career opportunities. Our strategy is to focus on creating a safe work environment where our employees feel strongly connected to our values and objectives, and where the capability of our people is key to our success.
Come and be a part of this success.
About the Role
Copper is critical to a sustainable future, and BHP’s Copper South Australia Province is leading the way in meeting global demand for this essential resource. Our Mine and Concentrator Growth (MCG) project is central to this vision, progressing a significant expansion from mine to concentrate to enable long-term copper production at Olympic Dam.
As Lead Underground Mining Studies, you will be a critical member of the project management team for the Mine and Concentrator Growth (MCG) expansion project within Minerals Australia Projects. You will work with the internal mining technical team and EPCM delivery partner to progress the underground expansion scope, ensuring requirements and interfaces are aligned across the end-to-end value chain from mine to concentrate and translating outcomes into clear, decision-ready recommendations.
Your leadership will foster a culture where:
- Safety is non-negotiable
- Diverse perspectives are valued
- Innovation drives better outcomes
You will be accountable for mine plan delivery, risk management and value optimisation. Ensuring project schedule, cost and quality are maintained while supporting framing trade-offs and pursuing capital optimisation opportunities to achieve a minimum viable scope.
Key Accountabilities:
- Be accountable for project management oversight of the mine plan development and mining technical study deliverables for the MCG expansion, ensuring integration across BHP internal disciplines, contractors and key mine-to-concentrate interfaces. For clarity, this is not a technical mine planning position.
- Connect BHP technical teams and the EPCM delivery partner to define and enable delivery of underground mining requirements that support the broader mine-to-concentrate expansion.
- Influence and align a multi-disciplinary network to achieve study outcomes and decisions at pace.
- Validate that scope, design assumptions and delivery approach represent the minimum viable scope while maintaining safety, operability and compliance.
- Frame trade-offs and clearly communicate recommendations and study outcomes to support critical investment decisions.
- Work within the project team to connect across disciplines and ensure mining outcomes, assumptions and requirements are reflected in downstream scope.
- Identify value and capital optimisation opportunities and adapt study pathways to improve lifecycle outcomes.
- Ensure study activities and outputs meet agreed schedule, cost and quality requirements, with clear scope control and governance.
- Support communication of project progress and status, including routine reporting, coordination of inputs and timely escalation of issues and decisions.
- Lead risk identification, assessment and response planning to improve certainty and protect value across the underground expansion scope.
About You
You are a collaborative studies leader with a strong underground mining background and the ability to connect multi-disciplinary teams to deliver high-quality, decision-ready outcomes. You are comfortable influencing without authority, shaping trade-offs, and communicating complex technical outcomes clearly to a broad stakeholder group. Experience across a range of underground mining methods such as sublevel open stoping, sublevel caving and block caving is desirable.
We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet every requirement. Your unique perspective could be exactly what we need.
What we offer:
- Flexible work arrangements, including up to two days working from home.
- A supportive environment where diverse voices are heard and respected.
- Opportunities for professional growth and development.
The chance to contribute to a project that will shape the future of sustainable copper production.
Applications are open until Fri, 5 June 2026.
About Our Process
At BHP, we are committed to employing individuals who align with the BHP Charter Values and meet the requirements of the role. As part of the recruitment process, there are a number of checks which may be conducted to demonstrate applicants suitability for a role including police / criminal background checks, medical, drug and alcohol testing, due diligence checks, right to work checks, and/or reference checks.
If you are already employed directly by BHP, please log in using your BHP email address or apply via our internal jobs portal.
Supporting a Diverse Workforce
The size, stability and magnitude of our business not only provides significant opportunity for professional development, but also attractive salary packages with performance-based bonuses and a best-in-class employee share program. We know there are many aspects of our employees' lives that are important, and work is only one of these, so we offer benefits to enable your work to fit with your life. These benefits include flexible working options, a generous paid parental leave policy, other extended leave entitlements and parent rooms.
At BHP, we know that we are strengthened by diversity. We are an Equal Opportunity employer that is committed to making BHP a safe and inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive and be at their best every day. We are focused on creating a workforce that’s more diverse and represents the communities where we work and live. providing a work environment in which everyone is included, treated fairly and with respect. We are an Equal Opportunity employer and recognise that true diversity includes gender, age, race, disability status, sexual orientation, religion, neurodiversity, education levels, and many more aspects of your identity.
BHP is committed to providing a recruitment process that is fair, equitable and accessible for all. If you have a disability, we know that it may be helpful for us to adjust our process to make it equitable for your individual situation. If you would like to reach out to someone about your situation and our recruitment process, please email us at inclusion@bhp.com.