Mineral Processing Plant Operator
industrial_energy_operations › Mining Processing Plant · S2 — S2 — Support Specialist · Support
An individual contributor who operates crushing, grinding, and processing equipment to reduce ore and extract metals under routine guidance.
Median pay · United States · annual
$42,923 USD
▲ +15% vs S1 on this ladder
Typical range ()
Ask about this role
grounded in this role's JobFrame record + structureDownload this job's description (markdown) → derived live from this record.
Key statistics
The identity block — every fact is canon, none is generated.
What this role is
An individual contributor who operates crushing, grinding, and processing equipment to reduce ore and extract metals under routine guidance. At the Support Specialist (S2) level, the role owns a defined queue or customer set, standard issues within known procedures, and drives customer satisfaction for own queue. None.
What this level does
- Set up and operate several stationary plant items — crushing, screening, milling — across a section of the plant, running through the multi-step start-up, run and shut-down sequence to job specifications.
- Observe meters, gauges and control panels, adjust valves and controls to keep the circuit within safe and efficient operating ranges, and recognize when a reading calls for escalation.
- Detect malfunctions and abnormal noise, vibration or flow, and assist maintenance staff with routine plant and machinery repair and changeovers.
- Complete risk assessments and shift records for the section operated, and work both alone and as part of the shift team following established procedures.
- Knowledge applied
- Broad knowledge of the operating routine across a section of the plant; runs multi-step start-up, run and shut-down sequences and reads meters, gauges and panels to stay in range.
- Complexity & problem solving
- Semi-routine, multi-step tasks; recognizes when a reading or malfunction calls for deviation or escalation and adjusts controls within set limits.
- Collaboration & interaction
- Routine peer interaction on shift; assists maintenance and works alone or in the team on assigned circuits.
- Typical experience
- 1–2 years; some operating experience with a qualification or equivalent competence for the section run.
Skills at this level
- Stationary Processing Plant Operation
- — Sets up and operates plant and machinery that grind, crush, cut, saw and slice rock, minerals and stone to job specifications, and maintains steady feed of unprocessed material from conveyors into the machines.
- Circuit Monitoring and Control
- — Observes meters, gauges and control panels and adjusts valves and controls to keep crushing, screening, milling, thickening, leaching, CIL and gold-recovery circuits running safely and efficiently.
- Mineral Separation and Recovery
- — Separates metal and mineral concentrates from ore and alluvial deposits using thickening, flotation, gravity separation, filtration, and magnetic or electrostatic separation.
- Processing Chemistry Knowledge
- — Applies knowledge of leaching, flotation, gravity separation and related chemical processes involved in pre-treatment and demineralization, and uses it to make changes that optimize plant performance and efficiency.
- Quality Sampling and Inspection
- — Examines processed material visually and by hand against standards, collects representative samples for laboratory testing, and records processing quantities, types and dimensions during the shift.
- Malfunction Detection and Maintenance Support
- — Detects abnormal noise, vibration, flow or readings that signal a plant malfunction, and assists with preventative and corrective maintenance and repair of plant and machinery.
- Preventative Maintenance and Housekeeping
- — Carries out routine preventative maintenance inspections and housekeeping of processing equipment and reports plant defects for repair.
- Process Optimization Adjustment
- — Makes appropriate changes across plant processes and circuits to improve throughput, recovery and efficiency, accounting for downstream effects of each adjustment.
- Safety, Environmental and Regulatory Compliance
- — Conducts risk assessments and works within environmental regulations and the safety rules governing mineral-processing plant operation.
- Shift Record Keeping
- — Records processing information such as quantities, types, dimensions and circuit readings on shift logs to document plant operation and support quality control.
- Working Lead on Shift
- — Guides less experienced operators, allocates equipment coverage, and leads safe start-up, shut-down and isolation of the plant during a shift without formal people-management authority.
- Operating Procedure Development
- — Contributes to the creation and refinement of standard operating procedures, start-up/shut-down sequences and risk assessments, and coaches operators to the new methods within the plant.
- Regulated Operator Qualification
- — Holds and maintains required mineral-processing plant operating qualifications (e.g. the MPQC Level 2 Diploma in Mineral Products Mobile Plant Operations with underpinning English and maths) where the pathway is regulated.
Model-authored from 14 retrieved sources, then adversarially reviewed by an independent judge panel and held to a minimum-evidence floor before publication. Distinct from corpus-extracted content, which is labelled as such.
Scan / share this profile
Put this on a job description, posting, poster, book, or catalog — it opens this canonical profile.
https://jobframe.global/profile/jf_mining_processing_plant%3A%3AS2
As of · 2026-07-30
Edition · canon-v2@2.1.0-complete
Source · canon-v2 cell + salary-benchmark (model)
Act on this profile
Guides
A guided career narrative for this exact profile — pilot clusters first.
Assessments
Level-scoped evaluation criteria, BARS frames, and structured-interview dimensions — from this profile's canon + O*NET.
Free
Assemble a validated assessment battery for a role from the library's pieces.
Free
Past-behavior-first structured interview questions, anchored rating scales, and panel-scoring instructions — from this profile's canon + O*NET.
Free
The complete work-products kit for one canonical job profile: level-scoped evaluation criteria with BARS frames, structured-interview dimensions and guide, performance criteria, and goal/scorecard templates — all canon-grounded and basis-labeled.
$29
Work-products kits for every level and focus in one job family — the hiring-manager shape: assess, interview, and set goals across the whole ladder consistently.
$99
Every work-products kit across all canonical profiles, refreshed as source editions land.
$49/mo
Every work-products kit across all canonical profiles, refreshed as source editions land. Annual billing (two months free).
$490/yr
JobFrame Enterprise
One job framework. Every talent decision.
The unified, transparent framework your hiring, pay, performance, promotion, learning, and management decisions all build on — recomputed into your org's own maintained edition.
Recalculate for your org