Justin Young new GM of Nutrien Rocanville
April 11, 2023, 1:47 pm
Kevin Weedmark and Sierra D’Souza Butts
The new General Manager of Nutrien Rocanville says the mine will continue to be busy with capital investment in addition to day-to-day mining over the next several years.
Justin Young says capital investment in the mine will remain around the same level over the next five years.
There have been major investments in the mine in recent years, with upgrades to the mill, expansion to the tailings management area, expansion underground, and the addition of an electrical generation plant.
“If you were to look at our capital forecasts, there will continue to be lots of work around here to reach our production network target of approximately 18 million tonnes over the coming years,” he said.
“In our business we’re never really done with maintaining and investing in our assets. There’s still a large sustaining capital requirement to be able to maintain and keep up with our mining and milling facilities.
“When we look at responsible and sustainable mining, our mine plans are forecasted into the future a long way.”
When asked about the possibility of an underground expansion and the potential for another shaft, Young says:
“We have a very detailed five-year site plan. We know where our miners are going to be, the development we need, the amount of underground infrastructure we need, and the upgrades we need to do in the mill from a sustainability standpoint. Then we look out at our 20-year mine plan, we have a good understanding where the mining panels are, and the amount of work we need to do to be able to sustain the production of 5.2 to 6 million tonnes.
“Based on those long-range plans, we get to a spot where we need to do something for ventilation and power underground. There are a few options. One is another shaft, but there are some other options outside of doing a shaft. A company our size spends a lot of time reviewing and making sure we make the right decision.”
Mine employees come from a wide area, Moosomin one of the main communities
Young said employees commute from as far as Saskatoon to work at the Rocanville mine, but most employees are in the local area.
“We have people who drive from Saskatoon and rent a room in the area. Others settle in the local area, with Moosomin being a big contingent. We just had a new hire group come in this week. There were 11 employees in this group and about half of them would be looking to stay in the Moosomin area,” he said.
“A couple are renting in Rocanville, some in Manitoba, some are moving to other small communities in the area. They are typically spread around the area, but I would say Moosomin is probably one of our biggest populations for employees just because it has a few more amenities.”
Since starting at the mine, Young has seen significant growth.
“You can easily say the staff has doubled,” said Young.
“Before my time we were at about 400 employees when we were doing half of the capacity. We doubled our workers since the expansion, and we’ve seen certain areas of the business grow.
“For example, we’ve seen the amount of capital spend required to continue to operate a facility this large grow, so we built our own capital management team on site.”
Rocanville Nutrien’s largest mine
Nutrien Rocanville has close to 900 direct employees in addition to many contractors.
“We have 895 employees right now,” said Young.
“The number of contractors varies. There are peak seasons. In a turnaround we’ve been up to 1,200 to 1,400 contractors alone, plus all our employees. There’s been days where the swipe-ins at security were over 2,000 people.
“Rocanville is the largest and lowest cost producer among Nutrien’s six potash mines.
“This year we’re anticipating about 5.2 million finished product tonnes.
“Out of all our potash sites, we are responsible for about 40 per cent of the overall production.
“Our low cost per tonne comes down to our ground conditions underground. We’re able to use a long room and pillar mining method, some would call it rock farming, where we cut straight ahead for about 5,000 to 6,000 feet, turn the miner back around for a second pass, then go back and cut the third pass; where our other mines have to mine in a stress relief fashion with shorter rooms and more ground control required,which is a lot more work.”
How does Young explain the size of the Rocanville mine to people?
“Most people have been to the city of Calgary,” he says. “If you drew a line around the perimeter of Calgary and overlaid it over our mine plan, it’s about that size. Our underground workings are vast.”
Experience prepared Young for new role
Young said his years of experience have prepared him for his role as general manager.
“I’m from the area. I was born and raised in Wapella. My wife and I made the choice we should come back from Alberta. My parents are still here. My wife’s parents are still here, and we had young children at the time when we moved back in 2011,” said Young.
“My first role in the mine was a senior project engineer. After about a year, I took on the underground engineering manager position.
“Then a year after that I got involved in the expansion project and I saw that through to completion in 2016. I was then transferred to the mill where I became the mill maintenance superintendent for a few years. After that I became the assistant general manager and most recently became general manager.
“Being the assistant GM and stepping into this role, there isn’t that much change,” he said.
“In terms of the day-to-day operations with my past role, it’s very similar to the expectations I have in this role.
“There’s now more collaboration with our corporate office and supporting the facilitation of the strategic initiatives we are working on,” said Young.
“Knowing how the site operates, allows the GM to share what will work, what won’t work, things like that. I will now have more say and involvement in that process, which will probably be the biggest change.”
Biggest challenge
He said that attracting and retaining people is the biggest challenge for the mine.
“Right now the biggest challenge we have is the war for talent,” said Young.
“It’s very hard to find skilled people and to get people to come to our community.
“The other thing is keeping them here once we get them here, especially our professionals. That’s one of our biggest challenges right now. If they have a connection in the area they will stay, but if they don’t have a connection to someone or something in the area it’s hard to keep them here.”
Biggest reward
Young said the most rewarding part about the job is the people and working closely with everyone on the team, and getting them home safe every day.
“If I had to summarize the perfect day, it would be spending time in the field interacting with our employees and then leaving work knowing that everyone went home to their families safe, everyone’s able to provide for their family by working here,” said Young.
“And, that we hit our production targets. That we produced what we said we’re going to produce, and we did it as efficiently as we could, and under budget.
“That would be the perfect day for me. We call them 0-20-60 days—zero injuries, no one got hurt, we produced 20,000 product tonnes, and we mined and hoisted 60,000 tonnes, which is a productive day.”
And when asked why he does it?
Young says: “I love what I do and the industry I am in. I like the opportunity Nutrien provides for my career, the opportunity it affords my family, the opportunities it provides for my work family, and the opportunities it provides to our community as a whole.”
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