Engineering Lead

Oman Investment Authority

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Engineering Design Reviews

Conduct structured 30%, 60%, and 90% engineering design reviews of deliverables produced by EPCM firms and specialist consultants, ensuring compliance with MDO's engineering standards, applicable international codes, and the approved design basis at each study and execution milestone.

Document design review findings formally, assign responsibility for resolution of technical comments, and track closure of all open actions to completion.

Review and challenge EPCM and consultant engineering assumptions and technical decisions relating to process configuration, equipment selection, plant layout, and infrastructure design.

Assess engineering designs for compliance with safety-in-design principles, regulatory requirements, and applicable Omani standards.

Throughput & Metallurgical Recovery Validation

Validate plant throughput assumptions and metallurgical recovery estimates embedded in feasibility studies and engineering designs, ensuring they are technically justified by testwork results and are appropriate for the level of study definition.

Review metallurgical testwork programmes for fitness-for-purpose, ensuring that test conditions are representative of ore types, variability is adequately characterised, and recovery projections are conservative and defensible.

Assess process design criteria and mass balance assumptions for consistency with testwork outcomes, and flag risks or optimism in recovery or throughput estimates to the Director Studies & Delivery.

Coordinate with the Study Lead to ensure metallurgical and process validation findings are reflected in study reports and the Gate 3 FID package.

Operability, Maintainability & Constructability

Ensure that all engineering designs are assessed for operability, maintainability, and constructability, providing formal review inputs at each design milestone to protect long-term asset performance and reduce lifecycle costs.

Facilitate constructability reviews during FEED in collaboration with the Contracts & Execution Planning Manager, identifying engineering changes that would reduce construction complexity, cost, or schedule risk.

Review equipment specifications and layout designs for access, maintenance, and operability, liaising with MDO's Operations function to incorporate operational experience and preferences.

Identify and document operability and maintainability risks in formal design review reports, ensuring findings are resolved or formally accepted before design progression.

MDO Engineering Standards Management & Approval

Manage and maintain MDO's engineering standards framework, including design codes, technical specifications, equipment standards, and engineering procedures applicable across the project portfolio.

Review, approve, and issue MDO engineering standards documents, ensuring they reflect current industry best practice, applicable regulatory requirements, and lessons learned from MDO's project experience.

Enforce compliance with MDO's approved engineering standards across all EPCM and consultant deliverables, raising non-conformances formally and tracking resolution.

Establish and manage a technical document control and quality assurance process for engineering deliverables, ensuring consistency, version control, and traceability.

Review and approve key technical documents including design bases, engineering design criteria, functional specifications, and critical equipment data sheets.

Technical Due Diligence for JVs & Financing

Lead technical due diligence processes for joint venture assessments, project financing transactions, and Board investment submissions, providing MDO's owner-side technical assessment of engineering risks, design assumptions, and capital cost reliability.

Review independent technical expert reports and lead MDO's response to technical findings, recommendations, and queries raised by financing institutions, JV partners, and the Board.

Prepare technical due diligence reports and executive summaries for the CPTO and Director Studies & Delivery covering engineering risks, design maturity, and capital cost confidence levels.

Interface directly with independent engineers, lenders' technical advisors, and JV partner technical representatives as MDO's lead technical contact during due diligence processes.

Lessons Learned Database Management

Manage MDO's engineering lessons-learned database, capturing technical findings, design errors, engineering review outcomes, and improvement opportunities from all completed and active studies and projects.

Integrate lessons learned systematically into the initiation and scoping of new study phases, ensuring that identified risks and improvement opportunities are explicitly addressed in new study scopes and terms of reference.

Prepare periodic lessons-learned integration reports for the Director Studies & Delivery, summarising key findings, open actions from previous reviews, and how prior lessons have been applied.

Ensure lessons-learned findings from Post-Implementation Reviews owned by the Project Governance & Readiness Lead are incorporated into MDO's engineering standards and review checklists.

Value Engineering & Technical Optimisation

Lead and facilitate value engineering workshops during study phases to identify opportunities to optimise capital cost, improve operability, reduce schedule risk, and enhance long-term asset performance.

Challenge scope creep and over-engineering in EPCM designs, promoting fit-for-purpose solutions aligned with MDO's capital efficiency objectives.

Identify and recommend technical alternatives and trade-off options for Director Studies & Delivery consideration during key study decision points.