Senior Ore Buyer

Senior ore-buyer work runs at the strategic-procurement level of metals operations — leading major ore-procurement contracts (multi-year arrangements with mining operations or trading firms), managing senior supplier relationships across the mining-and-trading community, supporting strategic decisions about content-grade preferences and smelter-supply mix, and mentoring junior ore buyers. The senior buyer works metals-market references (LME pricing, regional trading networks), assay-and-content analysis, and the cross-functional partnerships ore procurement involves with smelter or processing operations. Content-secured outcomes, cost-management results, and senior-supplier relationships drive the operating measures.

What distinguishes senior ore-buying work is the technical-commercial sophistication the role requires at scale — senior ore buyers handle the metallurgical-and-commercial calculations that drive significant company economics, with the discipline applied across substantial annual volumes. Variance is wide: at integrated mining-and-smelting operations the senior role works internal supply chains; at independent smelters or trading firms it involves multiple supplier relationships at scale; at specialty metals operations it focuses on specific commodity categories.

This role fits people who are technically deep on ore and metallurgy, commercially sophisticated, and comfortable with senior supplier and site engagement. AusIMM senior credentials, SME membership, and ongoing CE anchor seniority. The trade-off is the metals-market volatility senior ore procurement navigates and the field-and-site time substantial mining-supplier relationships require.