Mining for Non-Miners

Mining is argued about by far more people than understand it. This week builds the picture end to end, from the geology that puts an orebody somewhere to the closure plan that outlives the pit, in plain language and against real operations rather than theory. It is aimed squarely at people who have to make decisions about mining without having come up through it, and it does not patronise them.

It runs 7 times over the published calendar, in 6 cities and live online. Every date is the same programme with the same content and the same certificate.

• Follow the mining cycle from exploration through to closure.
• Tell open pit from underground work, and know why each is chosen.
• Read the basic vocabulary of grade, tonnage, recovery and cut off.
• Understand where the money goes and where the risk actually sits.
• Ask a technical team a question that gets a useful answer.

Bankers, analysts and investors, lawyers and regulators, suppliers and contractors, government officers, and corporate staff in finance, HR, procurement and communications at mining companies.

Short input, then work. Across 5 days of roughly 6 teaching hours each, the balance sits deliberately with the second: a programme where the trainer talks for six hours produces notes rather than capability.

• Your own material

  Exercises run on situations delegates bring, not on a case study written for a different organisation in a different decade.

• A capped cohort

  Small enough that everybody is asked something. Executive programmes are capped tighter still.

• Practice under scrutiny

  The difficult conversation, the challenged assumption, the decision defended out loud. Judgement is not built by watching.

• Something to take back

  Each day ends with a thing you can use on Monday rather than a slide deck you will not reopen.

• A working vocabulary that survives a meeting with engineers.
• A map of the cycle with the decision points marked.
• A short list of the questions worth asking about any project.

A GATI certificate recording what you attended, issued after the programme has run and attendance has been taken. Attending at least 80 per cent of the days earns a certificate of completion; attending less earns a certificate of attendance stating exactly what was attended.

Every certificate carries a code that anybody can check against GATI's own record, which is what makes it worth holding. It records participation. This site will not imply one it does not have.