London – 28 February 2024: Women in Mining UK 2023 Summer Internship at Centamin – Fatma Moner
Written by: Fatma Moner
I am a graduated geologist from Damietta University in Egypt, working on my thesis to obtain the master degree in petrology and ore deposits. I was really lucky to be accepted in the Women in Mining UK 2023 summer internship that was located at Centamin PLC/ Sukari Gold Mine in Egypt.
First of all, I’d like to thank Women in Mining UK for providing such great opportunity for women to live this such wonderful experience in the mining industry. Also, thanks to Centamin PLC and Mineral Resource Managements for giving me that great chance to gain this experience in that short duration.
My internship started in the 1st of September to 20th of November in the Sukari Gold Mine that is located within the Arabian Nubian Shield (ANS) in the South Eastern Desert of Egypt, nearly 23 km south-west of Marsa Alam city on the Red Sea coast, about 30 minutes drive from my accommodation at Marsa Alam. It covers an area of 160 km² considering as the Egypt’s first large scale gold mine.
Internship program
In my first couple of days, I had attended some lectures in the Health, Safety, Environment and Sustainability department (HSES). After that, training program has been started in the surface exploration department in order to provide a good exposure to all processes including sampling, drilling, and geological interpretation. In the MRM project geology section, a part of the geology section during the second round. This section involved activities such as core logging, geological sectional interpretation, and preparation of core samples for assay.
The subsequent training involved the OP MRM geology section, passing through various tasks such as GC drilling, wall and floor mapping, ore blocks design, monitoring ore movement, mining & blasting operations, managing crusher feed blending, and overseeing the reconciliation process. Later on, training was in the UG MRM geology section where I have been exposed to various tasks related to underground geology and mining operations such as face mapping, geological sampling & modeling, blasting and Load & Haul. Then the process of resource estimation involved multiple stages, including data validation, QAQC, statistical analysis of data, and the estimation of ore blocks. I also had a laboratory visit to see how samples are prepared to measure the Au% assay. Besides, a visit to the plant processing where we will obtain our target which is gold ounces. Later on, I had the chance to join Eastern Desert Exploration team (EDX) in their field work for a day where I learned all samples types used in the exploration stage.
Overall, this internship program at Sukari Gold Mine has been an invaluable experience, allowing me to gain practical knowledge and skills in various aspects of mineral resource management. I am grateful for being a part of this program and I am confident that the knowledge and experience I gained will support me to enter the mining industry one day.