A Case Study of Incorporating Variable Recovery and Specific Energy in Long-Term Open Pit Mining-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

A Case Study of Incorporating Variable Recovery and Specific Energy in Long-Term Open Pit Mining

Published:2023-06-16 Issue:2 Volume:3 Page:367-386
ISSN:2673-6489
Container-title:Mining
language:en
Short-container-title:Mining

Author:

Mata Jônatas Franco Campos da¹,Nader Alizeibek Saleimen¹,Mazzinghy Douglas Batista¹^ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Graduate Program in Metallurgical, Materials and Mining Engineering, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte 31270-901, Brazil

Abstract

Integrated Optimization can find optimized solutions for a project to define open pit and mine scheduling with greater reliability. This work aims to demonstrate how the insertion of geometallurgical variables can significantly change the financial return of a project. Two geometallurgical variables are considered in mine planning simulations. Specific energy corresponds to the energy consumed in the comminution of the ore, and process recovery measures the percentage of metal incorporated into the product. Three scenarios were developed considering an iron ore deposit. In the Base Case (BC) scenario, the recovery was fixed, and the specific energy of comminution was not considered. GeoMet1 considers the variable recovery varying for each block. GeoMet2 considered both recovery and specific energy as variables varying for each block. GeoMet1 and GeoMet2 presented Net Present Value (NPV), respectively, as 3.68% and 13.57% lower than the BC. This overestimation of the BC results can be viewed as an optimistic case of mine planning that is very common in the mining industry. These results show that the use of specific energy and recovery variables is fundamental to obtaining more reliable mine planning.

Funder

CNPq–National Council for Scientific and Technological Development

Publisher

MDPI AG

Subject

General Medicine

Link

https://www.mdpi.com/2673-6489/3/2/22/pdf

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