Construction Engineer — Amrun Water Bores

My earliest professional role after university was as Construction Engineer on the Amrun Water Bores project with AJ Lucas, from April 2016 to December 2018.

Rio Tinto and Bechtel had formed a joint venture to construct the new Amrun bauxite mine in Aurukun, Queensland, and AJ Lucas was engaged to drill and construct six water bores tapping into the Artesian aquifer to supply it. As construction engineer on the drilling works, I was responsible for quality, documentation, reporting, and developing the plans and procedures the works ran on.

Day to day that meant:

• Managing a project schedule in Primavera P6 as the contract evolved
• Reporting project budget and progress weekly and monthly
• Acting as a key interface between the client, other contractors, subcontractors and the project team

It was as much about people and process as it was about engineering — building a rapport with the client’s site-based supervisors and engineers, managing expectations through setbacks, and working through issues in the client’s design package to bring it into compliance. Nearly three years on a single heavy civil project taught me most of what I still rely on for managing scope, schedule and stakeholders today.