ROBIN J. HICKSON
Robin J. Hickson Primary author, is a mining engineer with 50 years of experience from building and operating mines around the world. Hickson earned his engineering degree from the Royal School of Mines in the United Kingdom and his MBA with honors from Tulane University. He is a Chartered Engineer and a certified Qualified Person in Mine Engineering. Hickson started in the mining industry as an underground laborer on the face of a UK longwall coal mine in 1963, and then acquired broad operations knowledge in the first half of his career as he progressed from engineer, shift boss, general manager, and vice president to president. His operations work took him into more than 100 mines in 25 countries in the Americas, Asia, Russia, Africa, and Europe.
Hickson’s operations career was split between underground and surface as he worked for New Jersey Zinc, Kerr McGee, Asarco, Gold Fields, Freeport-McMoRan, Cyprus Amax, and Gabriel. He managed a variety of underground and surface mining operations encompassing gold, silver, copper, lead-zinc, molybdenum, limestone, aggregates, and uranium. He has also worked in nickel, soda ash, phosphate, potash, diamonds, coal, lithium, and iron ore operations. Hickson’s work took him to underground operations utilizing open stope, room-and pillar, panel, block cave, shrinkage, cut and fill, vein, and longwall methods; and on the surface into open-pit, quarry, strip, heap leach, dredge, hydraulic, and in situ mines. All together, these experiences encompassed more than 20 different mining systems. Projects occupied the second half of Hickson’s career. He led the expansion programs for three of the world’s major mining companies: Freeport-McMoRan, Gold Fields, and Cyprus Amax. He then moved on to serve as senior executive, global head of mining projects, for the international engineering and construction firms of Aker Kvaerner, McIntosh, and Stantec.
During this 25-year span, Hickson established an unblemished record for project delivery, leading the building of 15 grassroots mines and nine brownfield plant expansions on six continents — all completed in budget and on schedule, and operating at design throughput.
As project manager, he took four grassroots mines from feasibility to production :
- Grasberg, Indonesia, built in 5 years, the world’s lowest-cost copper and gold mine*.
- El Abra, Chile, built in 3 years for $1.3 billion, the world’s largest solvent extraction and electrowinning oxide copper mine*.
- Mesquite, California, built in 4 years, at the time, the world’s largest heap leach.
- Ortiz, New Mexico, heap leach gold open pit, permitted and built in 2 years.
As corporate projects executive, Hickson led the successful building of more than 20 other mining operations including Cerro Verde* and Tintaya (Peru); Kubaka* (Russia); American Soda, Big Springs, Fort Knox*, Henderson*, Pinal Creek, Santa Cruz, and Solvay (United States); Karonie and Bow River (Australia); Radomiro Tomic, El Tesoro, and El Teniente (Chile); and Nickel Rim (Canada).
Today, Hickson provides senior management advice to mining companies, engineering firms, and financial institutions involved in the development and operation of mining ventures.
Hickson has been responsible for the publication of 300 separate feasibility and prefeasibility studies, has co-authored three books for the mining industry, and has published numerous technical papers. In 1999 Hickson was honored with the AIME Robert E. McConnell Award “for innovation and creativity advances in the gold and copper industries”.
TERRY OWEN
Terry Owen collaborative author, is a mining engineer with 35 years of experience in optimizing operating properties and building new mines throughout the world. Owen’s proficiency in directing the development of complex international projects, from definition through engineering, construction, commissioning, and ramp-up into successful operation, has made him a recognized leader for the delivery of major mining ventures. Owen’s projects, valued at more than $7 billion to date, have garnered stellar safety records.
Owen received his mining degree from the University of Idaho, and he started his mining life in that same state at the deep underground Sunshine mine. His career progressed rapidly, with increasing responsibilities from tenures at Kerr McGee, Freeport-McMoRan, Cyprus Amax, Inco, Apex Silver, Golden Minerals, and Thompson Creek Metals. In between these appointments, Owen successfully runs his own consulting company. His operational and project experiences encompass block cave, vertical crater retreat, and narrow vein underground mines; open-pit; longwall and surface coal mines; and process and infrastructure facilities.
While working for Freeport Indonesia (FI), Owen had a direct leadership role in the highly successful $3 billion development of one of the world’s great ore deposits, expanding the original Ertsberg open pit which processed 6,800 tons per day, into multiple underground mines and the Grasberg open pit to produce a combined 125,000 tons per day. Owen’s pivotal role in the delivery of these FI projects and his subsequent management of their operations and infrastructure provided the solid project management foundation that was a catalyst for his next career phase.
Owen went on from FI to develop a strong tactical background in the turnaround management of operations and projects in the remote settings and multicultural environments of Australasia, the Russian Far East, Africa, and North and South America. Owen’s project knowhow allowed him to develop and install project delivery, project control, and management control systems in each of his organizations. His capabilities enable him to successfully transition from boardroom to field—forming, aligning, and directing project and operating teams while working through the challenges of mineral extraction, Mother Nature, local cultural expectations, environmental issues, and government and corporate demands.
Owen’s work with both stressed and successful projects resulted in a suite of best practices that can serve as the foundation for successful projects in any environment. His more recent mandates to turn around a succession of failing projects and operations led Owen to create his treatise on Greenfield Mine Development Best Practices, along with the defining of a new type of project leadership in the persona of the Development Leader (both unpublished collections).
Together these works provide a path to manage a project’s development from feasibility into ongoing operations.
Along with his successful FI projects, Owen directly developed with Hickson the projects of El Abra, Cerro Verde, Kubaka, Fort Knox, Henderson, and Willow Creek Coal. Owen separately held project leadership positions at San Cristobal in Bolivia and Mount Milligan, Voisey’s Bay, and Endako in Canada. Owen has been involved in more than 50 feasibility studies from exploration to brownfield revitalizations, and has managed projects with all the world’s leading engineering, procurement, and construction management firms. Owen is currently consulting for the mining industry.