Golsby, who moved to Queensland from New South Wales where she was at Centennial’s Clarence Colliery, told ILN she finished up at Oaky North on May 31 without saying where she would be going next.
“My resignation as technical services manager with Xstrata at Oaky North is effective as at 31 May 2011,” she said. “The agreement contains a mutual non-disparaging agreement. I am honouring my part by saying nothing.”
The highly credentialed Golsby, who was part of the team developing the 4FCT as a continuous haulage system at Clarence and who led an emergency response and rescue group exercise at the Mine Rescue and Emergency Management conference in Brisbane recently, is leaving Australia’s most productive longwall mine.
At the time of her appointment in November it was seen as a coup for Oaky North, which Xstrata is keen to maintain as a leading and innovative longwall operation with almost 10 million tonnes of raw coal output in the last financial year.
Golsby is considered a role model for women wanting to enter the mining industry. She has completed a Masters in mining engineering, a Masters in geomechanics and a Graduate Diploma in ventilation, all from the University of NSW.
She is currently studying for a Graduate Diploma in underground coal management and for the Conjoint Masters in business administration and law at Dundee University in Scotland, specialising in Australian resource law and policy.
In 2009-10 Oaky North reached 9.69Mt of total run of mine production – beating fellow Xstrata operation Newlands Northern, which produced 8.87Mt of ROM coal.
Including the 4.3Mt produced from Oaky Creek No. 1, the Oaky Creek Coal complex produced nearly 14Mt in the recent financial year.
