The focus of employees Training Department at Ramu NiCo Management (MCC) Limited(RNML) is on boosting its employees with relevant training that improves employees’ performance to be more effective and productive.

The training Manager for both Kurumbukari Mine site and Basumuk Refinery Michael James Tait says “Training is essential to allow our trainees both locals and expatriates to keep up with the latest technologies and techniques, making them more effective and productive in the workplace”.

Ramu NiCo project in Madang is one of the top nickel producers in the world and is the only large-scale nickel and cobalt project operated by Chinese Minmetals and MCC.

To maintain an international standard in its operation, annual training and improvement is vital.

Providing appropriate training is a way of pushing the employees’ performance and awarding employees at the end of operational year when they perform better.

The employees training has been a tradition of the company since it started to date. Mr. Tait who took over the training department as manager from 2018 has trained at least 11,218 employees (2018 to 2023). That is approximately 2,250 per year mostly on safety and heavy equipment operator training as well as technological process training.

One of the evidence of the employee’s improvement over the years from the training are the several years’ consecutive awards that  RNML won from MCC for its best performance in management and production.

Michael James Tait, now manages to further revisit qualifications of employees and do a training need analysis.

“Within that analysis, we will identity areas of improvement and where possible look for qualifications and training opportunities that will assist the company and our employees to streamline our operational processes,” Mr. Tait said.

Mr Tait emphasized that the training office will focus on operational outputs and getting the best out of the employees.

He is currently targeting at least 1,200 in different operational fields including plants and process training at Basamuk Refinery.

“We are engaged with the National Apprentice Trade Training Board (NATTB) for our technical assistance. The employees are presently training to become tradesmen in the following fields; heavy equipment fitter, motor vehicle mechanic, welder and machinist. We are also investigating the trade of electrician. Training is essential to allow our trainees to keep up with the latest technologies and techniques, making them more effective in the workplace,” said Mr. Tait.

He said the third party training is underway for the process training, to work in high risk area and endorsed from the Mineral Resources Authority (MRA).

The Ramu nickel and cobalt mine is located in Madang Province and has a mine span of between 35 and 40 years. It is expected to yield around 3,300 tonnes of cobalt and 33,000 tonnes of nickel contained in a high grade intermediate product when in full production, making it one of the top nickel producers in the world.

Ramu NiCo project has three operational sites. The Kurumbukari mine site, Basamuk Refinery and the slurry pipeline that pipes its ore slurry along a 135 kilometers long pipeline to the processing plant located on the coast at Basamuk Bay,55 kilometers southeast of Madang.

The Basamuk processing plant carries out high pressure acid leaching along with a deep-sea tailings placement system that entails disposing of the tailings in deep sea water off the coast.

The slurry pipeline that takes the ore from the Kurumbukari mine to the Basamuk processing plant and refinery is the first long distance transportation pipeline in the world that has been constructed to transport nickel laterite products, which has been specifically designed to make use of the height of the Kurumbukari plateau and the lower reaches of Basamuk Bay.

By Michael Lai

Ramu NiCo Training Manager, Mr. Mike Tait