A remarkable career: Norm’s enduring commitment to MIM
With 45 years’ experience and roughly 540 smelter relines and rebricks during his career at Mount Isa Mines (MIM) Norm Andrews is exceptionally experienced in smelter relines within the mining and processing sector.
Norm greets each smelter reline with the same spark of excitement he had on day one.
“I’m excited for my team to watch the vessel transform, one brick at a time,” says Norm.
He says every reline demands months of preparation, coordination and planning before the first brick goes down.
“For this year’s furnace reline, our planning commenced in March, starting with removal of the eastern end wall,” he says.
“The de-brick stage was completed in four days using three personnel per shift, supported by two Brokk operators and two safety spotters.”
The Brokk demolition robot is a remote-controlled, small excavator with a heavy-duty hydraulic breaker that safely and efficiently tears out degraded refractory linings.
With four and a half decades at MIM and approximately 540 relines to his name, Norm Andrews is widely regarded as the most experienced Supervisor in smelter relines.
“The re-bricking was carried out over 19 shifts, with 20 specialist bricklayers and six operators/trades assistants on each day and night shift, supported by local riggers, fitters, boilermakers, electricians, spotters, and crane operators working alongside our own Mount Isa workforce.”
“We used 29,500 refractory bricks from suppliers in Austria and China. There are different shapes of bricks, called square, slows and sharps, and insulation bricks, all laid with mortar and with bitumen paper in between the bricks.”
Refractory bricks form part of the furnaces that treat copper feed stocks including copper concentrates, matte and slag products to purify into molten copper for casting into anodes. The anodes are transported to the Townsville Copper Refinery and refined into 99.9995 percent pure copper cathode.
These furnaces operate at temperatures of up to 1,200 degrees Celsius and over time the heat and process conditions erode the bricks.
“With the brickwork completed, and the lining phase finished, we warm the furnace with wooden sleepers initially, then transition to diesel or a gas-fired system,” says Norm.
“Responsibility then passes to the mechanical team to complete preparatory work, followed by the production team who carry out roll out testing and issuing the final approval to restart operations. It really is a team effort.”
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One of the specialist refractory brick layers who replaced bricks at RHF.
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One of the specialist bricklayers at the furnace rebricking in April 2026.
Norm joined MIM in 1980 as a Refractory team member in the copper smelter and moved into supervision in 2009, supporting contractors and inspecting brickwork to ensure it met required standards.
Since 1980, Norm has been involved in major furnace relines every four years, and partial relines every two years with 11 campaigns of converter relines throughout most years also.
In the Copper Smelter, the anode furnace requires a regular or partial reline every two years and a full rebricking every four years.
Rotary Holding Furnace 1 generally is relined every four years and is due for its reline this October.
Norm’s contribution extends beyond the Copper Smelter furnaces and includes a long history of working with the Lead Smelter team on their blast furnace.
Copper Smelter furnace rebricking that took place during March 2026.
Capping off a remarkable career, Norm has averaged about 11 relines per year for the Copper Smelter since 1980 and completed approximately 45 relines for the Lead Smelter.
When asked why spending his career at MIM mattered to him, Norm says it was his family—his wife and three grown children and five grandchildren —who kept him motivated.
“Working at MIM has given me the opportunity to raise a family in Mount Isa.”