Planning Specialist - Water Management

Fortescue; Perth; On-site; AUD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Fortescue is seeking a Planning Specialist – Water Management for Cloudbreak mine in Western Australia. The role reports to the Superintendent – Medium Term Planning and coordinates dewatering planning across horizons, interfacing with operations, dewatering, and hydrogeology teams to integrate dewatering into mine plans.

You will develop and maintain dewatering plans, monitor KPI performance, identify risks, and drive actions to achieve dewatering outcomes while engaging with planning and

Qualifications

• Experience in mine planning, dewatering planning, hydrogeology, or mining operations.
• Strong understanding of mine planning processes across short, medium, and long-term horizons.
• Good understanding of dewatering requirements in an operational mining environment.
• Ability to coordinate and communicate across technical and operational teams.
• Strong stakeholder management and ability to drive accountability.

Responsibilities

• Liaising between short-, medium-, and long-term planning teams to ensure dewatering requirements are included in mine plans.
• Collaborate with the operational dewatering team to align activities with production requirements.
• Coordinate with the Hydrogeology team to understand risks and priorities.
• Develop and maintain dewatering plans that support mine sequencing and production targets.
• Monitor dewatering performance against KPIs and follow up on actions.
• Identify dewatering risks impacting mine plans and propose mitigations.
• Support integration of dewatering into weekly, monthly, quarterly, and 2YP planning processes.
• Ensure dewatering constraints and dependencies are communicated to stakeholders.
• Facilitate regular communication between planning, operations, and hydrogeology teams.
• Drive accountability within the dewatering team to achieve outcomes.

Skills

Mine planning

Dewatering planning

Hydrogeology

Stakeholder management

Communication

Education

Tertiary qualification in Mining Engineering, Hydrogeology, Geology, or related discipline

Job description

Our Opportunity

Work Location: Cloudbreak – Fortescue’s Cloudbreak mine is located on the traditional lands of the Palyku and Nyiyaparli peoples.

Roster: 4 Days on / 3 Days Off – FIFO ex Perth.

We are seeking a highly motivated Planning Specialist – Water Management to join our Cloudbreak Mines Operations Planning team.

Reporting to the Superintendent – Medium Term Planning, the successful candidate will be responsible for coordinating dewatering planning requirements across all planning horizons, operational dewatering teams, and the Hydrogeology team.

The successful candidate will also be responsible for ensuring dewatering activities are effectively integrated into mine plans to support safe, efficient, and reliable operations at Cloudbreak. This includes developing and maintaining dewatering plans, monitoring performance against dewatering KPIs, identifying risks and opportunities, and driving operational accountability to achieve agreed dewatering outcomes.

This role requires strong interpersonal skills to build effective relationships with planning, operations, dewatering, and hydrogeology stakeholders, as well as the ability to clearly communicate dewatering risks, constraints, and priorities to both technical and non-technical teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Liaising between short-term, medium-term, and long-term planning teams to ensure dewatering requirements are clearly understood and included in mine plans.
• Working closely with the operational dewatering team to ensure planned dewatering activities are practical, achievable, and aligned with production requirements.
• Coordinating with the strategic Hydrogeology team to understand hydrogeological risks, groundwater requirements, and technical dewatering priorities.
• Developing and maintaining dewatering plans that support mine sequencing, pit access, production targets, and operational readiness.
• Monitoring dewatering performance against agreed KPIs and following up with operational teams to ensure actions are completed.
• Identifying dewatering risks that may impact mine plans and escalating these risks early with proposed mitigation actions.
• Supporting the integration of dewatering requirements into weekly, monthly, quarterly, and 2YP planning processes.
• Ensuring dewatering constraints, assumptions, and dependencies are clearly communicated to planning and operational stakeholders.
• Facilitating regular communication between planning, operations, and hydrogeology teams.
• Driving accountability within the operational dewatering team to achieve agreed outcomes.

Qualifications And Experience

• Tertiary qualification in Mining Engineering, Hydrogeology, Geology, or a related discipline.
• Experience in mine planning, dewatering planning, hydrogeology, or mining operations.
• Strong understanding of mine planning processes across short, medium, and long-term planning horizons.
• Good understanding of dewatering requirements in an operational mining environment.
• Ability to coordinate and communicate effectively across technical and operational teams.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence and drive accountability.
• Ability to identify dewatering risks, constraints, and opportunities, and clearly communicate these to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong problem-solving skills with a practical operational focus.
• Operational mining experience, preferably in iron ore or open pit mining, would be advantageous.

About Us

Be part of something big. Fortescue is leading the world with our plan to decarbonise our iron ore operations, projects that harness renewable energy and the development of technology that will change our planet forever.

Our Commitment

Fortescue celebrates individual strengths and team members are encouraged to bring their whole selves to work. Our global workforce drives and promotes an inclusive culture, both within our organisation and throughout the communities we interact with. Diverse backgrounds include First Nations Peoples, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ community, gender, neurodiverse, cultural diversity, all age groups, and those with an intersectional or multiple diverse characteristics.

We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply.

https://fortescue.com/careers

Fortescue reserves the right to close applications early should a suitable pool of candidates be identified.