Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ACG2
ACG2
Contents
World driving force Costs Methods Design principles Risk concepts Project stage aims
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North Parkes Target Lutopan North Parkes MKO Optimisation Philex Andina Palabora El Teniente Regimento El Salvador El Teniente South Freeport San Manuel MKO Viability
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ECCONOMIC FORCES
NPVS AUD$ 300- 400 Million Possible NPVS 600- 800 Million IRR 11- 25% 15% IRR realistic number Project life 20 years Total opex US $ 9/ton for block caves
Cut-off grade
40 35 Revenue Open Stoping Sub Level Cave 25 20 15 10 5 0 0.00 Panel Cave Block Cave
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Caving methods
underground mining methods
naturally supported
artificially supported
unsupported
shrink stoping
VCR stoping
longwall mining
sublevel caving
block caving
Caving Methods
Pre-break , SLC or core & Shell Free caving methods, Block caving Hybrid methods (Block caving/SLC)
Pre-break Characteristics
SLC most common method Production by drilling and blasting Quicker to bring into production than Block Caving Typical mine size 2 to 5 million/tonnes year
Front cave
Inclined drawpoint
Method selection
CAPEX, pre break less up front OPEX, block caving lower Corporate risk, block caving 70% up front Cavability, pre-break less risk Slusher/grizzly, softer rock. Lower stress LHD, coarse fragmentation, high stress Geology, geometry, geotech etc
Pit Gearing
Cave mining seen as a natural transition from open-cut Very few mines can ramp straight into large scale block caving Block caving costs similar to deep level open cut costs Trend- block caving removes last two pit cutbacks Solution- Hybrid or shared infrastructure
Cave Risk
Caving is one shot mining Get it wrong major problems Hard to fix High levels capex
RISK IMPACTS
30-40% Capital blow out AUD$ 250-300 Million 30-40% recovered grade 30-50% less production in yr 1 5 years longer to achieve full production
Implementation times
Slow - 15 years Fast track - 7 years (super team) Highly aggressive - 6 years Average 10 years Super team personnel exist in the world Small SLC type operations 3 years Brownfield's FC 5 years
Design Detail
Rock factory concept High levels of detail required in every aspect Specialist studies
Risk Amelioration
Caving risks can be mitigated by:
- The use of the super team - Understanding that high levels of design detail are req. - Sanity checks (implementation times) - Hybrid system - Correct modelling techniques - Risk analysis
Cave projects
Critical mistakes Spend too little time on concepts -Mining method selection -Mining geometry - Block attack - Corporate risk profile Unrealistic expectations
Scoping study
General features of project
- Caving footprint - Caving block height - Bottom of open cut - Mining method selection
Best parameters 30-35% accuracy Dont worry about cavability Experiential, empirical input parameters
Well over hurdles, IRR can drop by 10% to DEFS
STUDY CONCEPTS
No gurus Use methods with a track history What is the study basis: - Negative experience - Everything done right - Balance of the above