Planning Specialist

About Midana Exploration Company

Midana Exploration Company (MEC) is a resource exploration and development company and a subsidiary of Hancock Prospecting, Australia’s leading private mining enterprise. MEC operates within the Middle East’s mining sector, focusing on the mineral potential of the Arabian-Nubian Shield. The company aims to transition high-potential exploration targets into operational mining assets by combining Hancock Prospecting’s expertise with local partnerships, contributing to the resource sector in Saudi Arabia.

The Role of Planning Specialist

The Planning Specialist will ensure consistency in planning, cost, schedule, and reporting across all exploration programs. This role provides the Exploration VP with a unified view of progress, expenditure, commitments, forecasts, and risks, while maintaining technical accountability. This is a full-time position based in Makkah, with operations in Jeddah and Makkah, requiring 5-10 years of experience.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop integrated work plans for Generative Exploration, Evaluation, and Advanced-Stage Exploration, linking scope, sequencing, dependencies, resource needs, and decision gates.
• Support annual planning, monthly forecasting, and long-term budget scenarios; maintain a consolidated exploration schedule and milestone view.
• Create and maintain a practical work-breakdown structure and baseline logic that connects approved scope, schedule activities, commitments, and reporting codes.
• Track critical path, near-critical activities, field constraints, and contractor dependencies; identify slippage early and support recovery or re-sequencing options.
• Monitor budgets, commitments, actual spend, contractor deliverables, and schedule performance across the portfolio.
• Prepare variance and trend analyses, explaining deviations, expected impact, and corrective actions.
• Maintain rolling forecasts at completion and support disciplined change control to reflect approved scope or timing changes in the current plan and forecast.
• Coordinate cross-functional inputs from geology, logistics, data, finance, and external consultants into a consistent reporting cycle.
• Maintain action registers, risk logs, decision records, and key planning assumptions for the exploration portfolio.
• Develop concise dashboards showing schedule status, cost/commitment position, forecast, key risks, and milestone performance for leadership review.
• Produce weekly updates, monthly progress reports, and external reporting for exploration programs.

Work Environment

This is a field-based role that requires periodic travel to active programs, camps, and contractor locations as needed. Flexibility is essential to support changing exploration priorities and campaign schedules.

Experience Required

• 5-10 years of relevant experience.

Application Information

Salary for this position will be disclosed during the recruitment process.