OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES

IN OPEN PIT MINING

KEYWORDS:
Mine planning, mine scheduling, open pit design, and mixed integer
linear programming
INTRODUCTION

• mathematical optimization techniques goes back to early 1960's

• many of these "optimizing algorithms" could not be implemented due to the limited
capacity of the computer hardware used in many mining operations
INTRODUCTION

Optimized pits but not

feasible for extraction

Nested pit shells

 INTRODUCTION

APPLICATION OF OPEN PIT OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES

Chuquicamata Open Pit Mine in Chile Newmont Gold Corporations in Nevada, USA
• re-evaluated their cutoff grade strategy • implemented large scale Linear
and improved Net Present Value (NPV) of Programming Model to schedule their
their ' operations by US$800M entire mine and mill production in the
Carlin District, resulting in significant
process costs savings
 INTRODUCTION

BLOCK MODEL

QUESTIONS ANSWER
1) Whether a given block in the model should be
Defined annual progression of the pit surface and
mined or not?
the yearly cash flows that will be coming from the
2) If it is to be mined when it should be mined?
mining operations during the life of mine.
3) Once it is mined then how it should be
processed?
INTRODUCTION

How decision is made for each blocks

in a block model:
• as to which blocks should be mined in a given
year
• how they should be processed (i.e. waste, run
of mine leach, crushed ore leach or mill ore
etc.) defines not only the cash flows for that
year but also impacts the future annual
schedules

NOTE:
1) What is decided today has long-term implications as to what can be done in the
future.
2) Decisions link together in defining the overall economics of the a given project.
3) Objective of the planning process for an open pit mine is usually to find optimum
annual schedules that will give the highest Net Present Value (NPV) while meeting
various production, blending, sequencing and pit slope constraints.
 INTRODUCTION

• Traditionally, scheduling problem is solved by

dividing the problem into sub-problems

The analysis of the ultimate pit limits of the

mine is undertaken to determine what portion of
the deposit can economically be mined. Within
the ultimate pit limits, pushbacks are further
designed so that deposit is divided into nested
pits going from the smallest pit with highest
value per ton of ore to largest pit with the lowest
Steps of traditional planning by circular analysis
value per ton of ore.
 ULTIMATE PIT LIMIT

The establishment of pit limits involves the development and superposition of a geometric
surface called a pit onto the mineral inventory.

The mineable material becomes that lying within the pit boundaries.
 ULTIMATE PIT LIMIT

• The size and shape of the pit depends upon economic factors and design/production
constraints.
• With an increase in price the pit would expand in size assuming all other factors remained
constant. The inverse is obviously also true.
• The pit existing at the end of mining is called the 'final' or the 'ultimate' pit.
• In between the birth and the death of an open-pit mine, there are a series of 'intermediate'
pits.
ULTIMATE PIT LIMIT

Procedures for generating pit limits are

based upon:
1) hand methods
2) computer methods
3) computer assisted hand methods

Within the pit are found materials of

differing value. Economic criteria are
applied to assign destinations for these
materials based on their value (i.e.
mill, waste dump, leach dump, stock
pile, etc.).
Once the pit limits have been
determined and rules established for
classifying the in-pit materials, then the
ore reserves (tonnage and grade) can be
calculated.
STRIPPING RATIO

Stripping Ratio:
The stripping ratio (SR) refers to the amount of
waste that must be removed for a given
quantity of ore in open pit mining.

It is most commonly expressed as:

SR= Waste (tons)

Ore (tons)
Stripping Ratio:

• Instantaneous stripping ratio: The stripping ratio for a given push back
• Overall stripping ratio: The stripping ratio for the total amount of material
removed.
• Break-even stripping ratio: The instantaneous stripping ratio at the point where
the cost of stripping the waste exactly equals the value of the ore uncovered.
SAMPLE PROBLEM

It will be assumed that:

• the pit is deepened in bench height
increments of 25 ft
• the minimum pit width is 100 ft
• overall slope angle is 45°
• the density of the ore and waste is the same
• the ore is of constant grade.

The original pit consists of 6 benches and has a

depth of 150 ft. Find:
1) The area of ore Ao
2) The area of waste Aw
3) The overall stripping ratio SR (overall)