Smelter Operation Readiness - Superintendent, Electrorefinery

Jobs Purpose

Responsible for leading and managing all day‑to‑day operations within the electrorefinery area. This role ensures that electrorefining processes run safely, efficiently, and in compliance with regulatory standards while meeting production, quality, and cost targets. The Superintendent provides leadership to Supervisors and technical personnel, oversees process optimization, and coordinates maintenance and operational improvements.

Jobs Key Duties & Responsibilities

1. Ensure electrorefinery operations comply with safety and environmental regulations, including chemical handling, electrical safety, and hazardous material controls.
2. Oversee the full electrorefinery process, including cell operation, anode dissolution, cathode deposition, chemistry management, and impurity separation.
3. Ensure production meets required metal purity specifications, often reaching 99–99.99% purity depending on metal type.
4. Monitor and optimize process parameters such as current density, cell voltage, electrolyte flow, impurity trends, and energy usage.
5. Drive continuous improvement initiatives to improve efficiency, product quality, electrolyte stability, and cost performance.
6. Work closely with maintenance, electrical, and instrumentation teams to ensure high availability of critical electrorefinery equipment including rectifiers, busbars, pumps, and cell hardware.
7. Supervise and develop Supervisors, technical staff, and operational teams. Provide performance feedback and ensure skill competency.
8. Support long-term capacity planning and technology upgrades.

Jobs Challenges

• Managing Highly Complex Electrofinery Processes, which requires precise control of current density, voltage, electrolyte composition, and impurity behavior, which can be sensitive to small disturbances. Maintaining stable conditions while achieving high‑purity metal (often 99–99.99%) is technically demanding.
• Ensuring Consistent Product Quality; impurities must be carefully controlled to avoid contamination of cathode plates. Variation in feed material, anode behavior, or electrolyte chemistry can negatively affect purity, deposition smoothness, or yield efficiency.
• Electrorefinery involves corrosive electrolytes, electrical hazards, industrial chemicals, and continuous power systems. Maintaining rigorous compliance, conducting audits, and enforcing safety procedures (e.g., LOTO, chemical handling protocols) is an ongoing challenge.

Requirement Education & Experience

Education/Pendidikan:

Master's or bachelor's degree in Metallurgy, Chemical Engineering, Materials Engineering or related technical discipline.

Experience/Pengalaman Kerja:

Ten (10) years of experience in refinery, metallurgircal, or electrolytic operations, with several years in supervisory or leadership roles.

Knowledge, Skills & Characters

Knowledge

• Deep knowledge and experience in technical operations of Electrorefinery (cell operation and chemistry), Equipment Operations (Crane/Forklift), Gas Schrubber and Purification Unit.
• Skilled in following safety and hazard recognition practices.
• Having License of Pengawas Operasional Madya (POM).

Skills

• Analytical skill.
• Communication skill.
• Strong Leadership with proven team management skills.
• Ability to make high‑quality decisions under pressure and coordinate multi-disciplinary teams.
• Interpersonal and Human Relation skills.

Character

• Concern for Safety and Environment
• Cultural Sensitivity
• Time Management
• Integrity; Able to be disciplined in following company policies and procedures.
• Persistence to achieve excellence.

Key Areas Decision-making Responsibility

• Process Control & Operational Parameter Decisions such as current density, voltage, electrolyte composition, and temperature to maintain product purity and process stability.
• Enforce safety protocols, conduct audits, and ensure compliance with environmental and safety regulations.
• Decides how to maximize throughput while ensuring the refined metal meets required purity specifications.
• Organize maintenance prioritization & equipment reliability decisions.