Students do practical at mine

 BARRICK Gold (TSX: ABX) Corporation subsidiary Barrick (Niugini) Ltd this year has the largest number of industrial trainees at the Porgera gold mine since the inception of the industrial training programme. 

Last year 50 students from tertiary institutions in the country were at mine attached with departments and sections according to their fields of study.  

Electrical engineering final-year students Lorna Komba and Glenda Gabriel and mechanical engineering final year students Aidan Marabe and Stanley Umbu from the University of Technology were among the 50 trainees.  

They were attached with the asset management and infrastructure department. 

Engineering and drafting senior engineer David Palei was responsible for facilitating the training programme for the engineering students.

The electrical students from Enga were involved with projects and tasks which involved running and terminating cables, changing power lines, installation of new electrical equipment, wiring of cables, among others. 

“We were tasked to do photocopies and organise drawings according to the drawing numbers. I learnt of the different types of electrical drawings and the project taught me about the symbols of electrical equipment and their connections,” Komba said.  

Engineer Kevin Adam said they encouraged trainees to learn as much as possible during their time on site 

The duo undertook a major project to update electrical drawings in every plant motor control centre (MCC). 

The MCC are electrical drawings essential during maintenance work and installation of new equipment.

Marabe and Umbu, from Enga and Hela respectively, did fitting and installing of components with fitters, rebuilding of automotive and mobile equipment parts such as gear boxes or pumps, mechanical and technical works such as drafting, design and project inspection.

“Everyone was friendly,” Marabe said. 

“We learnt so many new things. We have applied about 20-30 per cent of our classroom experience but majority of what we learnt here is new and we learnt this from the people we worked with.”