Rhonda O’Sullivan

Practice Lead Resource Knowledge, BHP

Rhonda O’Sullivan is a geoscientist with over 20 years of experience across exploration, resource development and mining. She has worked on world-class orebodies including Broken Hill base metals, Mount Isa Copper, Olympic Dam and Pilbara iron ore. Rhonda is currently Practice Lead Resource Knowledge in BHP’s Resource Centre of Excellence, where she works as part of a global team delivering enterprise-scale initiatives. She is passionate about the propagation of uncertainty through the mining value chain and bridging geoscience and mine planning disciplines to improve decision-making and close the loop back to resource characterisation. Rhonda holds a Bachelor of Science (Earth Science) with Honours from the University of Melbourne, as well as a Master of Mineral Economics and a Master of Business Administration from Curtin University. 

Presentation title

Geology, structural uncertainty and the multi dimensional reality of strategic mine planning

Abstract

Mining is a dynamic system where every action permanently alters its state and forward optionality. For example, when material is removed it changes access, reshapes stress regimes and eliminates future learning opportunities. What we mine today controls what we can know tomorrow. This keynote presents a decision-led framework for strategic mine planning that prioritises geological knowledge investment ahead of the decisions it serves, not alongside them. It introduces a hierarchy of mining decisions ranked by leverage and irreversibility, demonstrating that geological knowledge must be available to inform key decisions before flexibility is lost and options are locked in. When geological knowledge leads, strategic mine planning shifts from reactive schedule repair to proactive value creation. Using examples of scenario planning, value-of-information analysis and risk profiling, the presentation demonstrates how front-end loaded resource characterisation to improve capital efficiency and builds genuine optionality into strategic mine plans.