Guests at the BBMC’s May luncheon heard from Rae O’Brien, Group Executive – Australia East at Thiess, one of the world’s largest mining services providers. O’Brien traced the company’s 92-year journey from nation-building infrastructure to the autonomous haul fleets now operating in the Bowen Basin, and spoke to the industry challenges shaping its next chapter.
A legacy built on pioneering spirit
Thiess’ history spans some of Australia’s most significant construction and remediation projects: the Snowy Hydro Scheme, World Expo 88 infrastructure, the Sydney Harbour Tunnel, and the Maralinga cleanup in South Australia. The company also helped open some of Australia’s first open-cut coal mines, including Blair Athol in Queensland and Muswellbrook Coal in New South Wales, the latter of which Thiess rehabilitated to closure last year, 81 years after first starting work there.
Today, Thiess employs more than 12,500 people across 50-plus projects in nine countries. In Queensland, the company operates seven projects: QCoal’s Northern Hub (19 years), Caval Ridge and Peak Downs in partnership with BMA, Pembroke’s Olive Downs Complex, Curragh North (a continuous 22-year partnership through multiple ownership changes), Lake Vermont (since 2007), and the recently commissioned Eva Copper Mine Project in alliance with Harmony near Cloncurry.
Some client relationships extend across five decades. “These partnerships are built on collaboration, reliability, and a shared focus on safe, sustainable operations,” O’Brien said, “and even though some projects come to an end, the relationships with those clients stand today.”
Safety at the reset
Safety was a prominent theme across the address. O’Brien told the luncheon that Thiess had launched a global safety reset the previous week, prompted by an industry-wide increase in serious incidents.
“We’re dealing with very large equipment, and when people work around it every day, there’s a risk complacency can set in, and people may lose sight of the scale of the hazard and the level of risk involved. That’s why we reinforce every day that those risks are serious and ever-present.”
O’Brien said the reset was about re-anchoring situational awareness at every level of the workforce, with a focus on ensuring people understand the critical risks in their own day-to-day work.
Autonomy: aligning teams and technology for success
With more than six million metres drilled autonomously across its operations and 30 autonomous trucks working alongside a conventional fleet at the Olive Downs Complex, Thiess has been at the leading edge of mining autonomy in Queensland. O’Brien was candid about initial learnings.
“At first, we had different teams working on each of the different elements, and they weren’t necessarily working together as one team. One of the really beneficial solutions was to cross-pollinate people from the different teams, having the AHS supervisors in the pit and having mining supervisors in the control room.”
“Autonomy succeeds when people and technology work as one.”
On what suppliers and contractors should be focusing on to drive productivity gains, O’Brien nominated equipment reliability and the discipline of planned maintenance. “There’s a real focus on keeping the uptime, but to have uptime, you can’t avoid planned downtime,” she said. Beyond that, she identified digital tools and AI as the next significant growth area for the industry.
Building the workforce pipeline
Addressing questions on the labour market, O’Brien said that while current industry conditions are freeing up some capacity, the underlying challenge of building a long-term skills pipeline remains unresolved. To this end, Thiess has partnered with the University of Queensland to develop three postgraduate qualifications in mining for graduates with civil or other engineering backgrounds, creating a recognised pathway where previously only informal internal training existed.
At the other end of the skills pipeline, BBMC Director Jodie Currie made the case for engaging first-year engineering students and getting them on site before they lock into a specialisation, with mining industry exposure key to acceptance. “If we can get people in there, they love it. They absolutely love it,” she said, with O’Brien agreeing enthusiastically.
Looking to a 12- to 24-month horizon
O’Brien offered a cautiously optimistic read on the coal market, acknowledging sustained pressure from royalties, regulatory changes, cost inflation, and an uncertain geopolitical environment. She expects thermal coal demand to lift as the global energy crisis plays out, with coking coal and steel production to follow.
“We need to ride it out and continue investing in our businesses. To play the long game, we need to invest in ensuring we are as productive as we can be, as safe as we can be, and as cost effective as we can be.”
Thiess’ vision for the future, O’Brien said, centres on the interplay between people and technology: “Our vision is to harness the power of people and technology to drive sustainable change.”
Currie said the luncheon offered tangible takeaways for the entire supply chain. “Thiess has been part of the Bowen Basin for decades, and Rae gave the room a rare view inside how one of the world’s largest mining contractors is navigating this cycle. Her point that autonomous operations ultimately comes down to people is something every operation and every supplier here can take back and apply.”