James Porter, Manager – Technical (North)

MAusIMM CP (Min) • RPEQ • PRINCE2 Project Management Practitioner • BEng (Mining) Hons Class 1 (Dean’s Commendation) • BEng (Mechanical) • Grad Dip in Education

James is an astute and highly qualified Mining Engineer, Consultant and people leader with a resources career that began in 1999. He has extensive experience in mine design, scheduling and planning, contract management, project forecasting and project management (PRINCE2 Practitioner).

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About James

He has previously held senior roles in operations, technical services and strategic planning for companies including Thiess and BHP.

As leader of a Brisbane-based consulting team, James is particularly proud of his engineering, geology and business analysis professionals who are focused on delivering high-quality results for our clients. He is one of the longest-serving members of Xenith, reaching his 15-year milestone in 2024.

His leadership ability and professional engineering skills position him to deliver honest strategic and technical support and guidance as a trusted adviser to resource companies at an operational, senior management and executive level. He has undertaken key value-driving projects and roles with major mining organisations and had input everywhere from in-pit short-term issues in design and equipment deployment through to confidential due diligence exercises on major asset acquisitions.

James is interested in helping clients and the Xenith team address what he calls the serious engineering challenge of net zero and decarbonisation. He is enthusiastic about the opportunities ahead, including Xenith’s recently enhanced capacity to conduct exploration, progress environmental approvals and audits as well as plan and coordinate cultural heritage activities.

On a personal note…

James has two children and enjoys golf and hunting.

Skills and expertise

  • JORC Competent Person for the estimation of Coal Reserves for reporting in accordance with the JORC Code 2012. Has signed off on Coal Reserve estimates for multiple large sites.
  • Long-term planning: Producing Life-of-Asset mine plans for clients, engaging in dragline operation optimisation. Development of Cast-Doze-Excavate and Dragline methods in Dragsim. Modelling and optimising truck haulage in schedules. Economic evaluation of alternative approaches to exploiting resources supported by physical schedules and method modelling.
  • Short- to mid-term planning: Producing short-term plans, five-year plans, 10-year plans based on equipment schedules. Coal blending and logistics schedules. Measuring and reporting on physical and financial performance. Demonstrating practicality of plans using 3d-Dig including the latest “Auto Dragline” and Dozer modules.
  • Scheduling: SPRY scheduling in all timeframes, and development of scheduling models.
  • Margin ranking: Margin rank analysis using SPRY models and truck haul analysis in TALPAC and SPRY. Developed Xenith’s proprietary margin rank module in SPRY.
  • Project management: PRINCE2 Practitioner Level certified, with experience in managing cross-functional professional teams on a wide variety of projects on developing greenfields assets and optimising existing operations.
  • Technical expertise: Proficient in SPRY, Dragsim, DeswikCAD, 3d-Dig, and Microsoft Office Suite particularly Excel. Proficient in writing scripts in C# and VBA.

Career highlights

  • Xenith Consulting: Developing the Life-of-Asset and five-year mining plans for the Daunia Mine during project tollgating. Design and development of SPRY scheduling and haulage simulation models. Optimisation of dragline operations, including optimal use of bulk dozer push, for multiple major dragline operations. Developed Xenith’s proprietary JORC module in Spry including writing all code in C#.
  • BMA: Performed long term, medium term and budget scheduling for Poitrel and South Walker Creek mines in the Bowen Basin. Evaluated mine development options including dragline system optimisation and raw coal bypass options analysis.
  • Thiess: Design of blasts with electronic detonators including highly innovative timing techniques in difficult ground. Implementation of detailed short-term planning system that became viewed as “best practice” within Thiess and was replicated across other mining projects.
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