• The operation and management of a large open pit
mine is an enormous and complex task, particularly for mines having a life of many years.
• Optimization techniques can be successfully applied to resolve a number of important problems that arise in the planning and management of a mine.
• These applications include: ore-body modelling and ore reserve estimation; the design of optimum pits; the determination of optimal production schedules; the determination of optimal operating layouts; the determination of optimal blends • A fundamental problem in mine planning is that of determining the optimum ultimate pit limit of a mine.
• The optimum ultimate pit of a mine is defined to be that contour which is the result of extracting the volume of material which provides the total maximum profit whilst satisfying the operational requirement of safe wall slopes.
• The ultimate pit limit gives the shape of the mine at the end of its life. Usually this contour is smoothed to produce the final pit outline. • Optimum pit design plays a major role in all stages of the life of an open pit: at the feasibility study stage when there is a need to produce a whole-of-life pit design; at the operating phase when pits need to be developed to respond to changes in metal prices, costs, ore reserves, and wall slopes; and towards the end of a mine’s life where the final pit design may allow the economic termination of a project.
• At all stages there is a need for constant monitoring of the optimum pit, to facilitate the best long-term, medium-term and short-term mine planning and subsequent exploitation of the reserve.
• The optimum pit and mine planning are dynamic concepts requiring constant review. • Ultimate pit determination in each period of time is a function of financial affairs. This function is well defined by Break-Even Stripping Ratio (BESR). Importance of Ultimate Pit • As the first step for long or short-range planning, the limits of the open pit must be set.
• The limits define the amount of ore minable, the metal content, and the associated amount of waste to be moved during the life of the operation.
• The size, geometry, and location of the ultimate pit are important in planning tailings areas, waste dumps, access roads, concentrating plants, and all other surface facilities. Knowledge gained from designing the ultimate pit also aids in guiding future exploration work.
• Ultimate limits of an open pit, which define its size and shape at the end of the mine’s life, is the pit with the highest profit value.
• The shape of mining area at the end of mining operation or final limits of a mine must be designed before starting the operation. According to the designed final pit limits, mining operational parameters such as width, length and depth of mined pit, opening track ways, location of waste dump, stripping ration, mine life, minable ore tonnage, waste tonnage and production scheduling can also be determined
• Optimum pit limits are usually designed with the use of the block models.
• Geological block model, which presents the reserve as a combination of numerous small blocks, is determined by inverse distance or geostatistical methods.
• Then the economical block model is calculated by applying cost, price and other parameters to each block.
• In this model ore blocks have positive values, waste blocks have negative values and air blocks, and the blocks over the surface topography have zero values.
• Most of the optimum pit limits methods use the economical block models to determine the pit limits. The methodology is searching for a combination of blocks with the maximum economical value at current economical and technical condition Block Modelling • An early task in mine management is the establishment of an accurate model for the deposit. Though a number of models are available, the regular 3D fixed-block model is the most commonly used.
• This model is based on the ore body being divided into fixed- size blocks.
• The block dimensions are dependent on the physical characteristics of the mine, such as pit slopes, dip of deposit and grade variability as well as the equipment used. The centre of each block is assigned, based on drill hole data and a numerical technique, a grade representation of the whole block.
• The numerical technique used is some grade extension method such as : distance weighted interpolations, repression analysis, weighted moving averages and kriging .
• Using the financial and metallurgical data the net profit of each block is determined. Design procedure in an open pit mine with regard to UPL determination • The basic models which are used for the analysis are as follows:
Where R is overall recovery coefficient of the mineral processing (decimal
fraction), g is ore grade (decimal fraction), p is the final product price per tonne, c1 is concentrating cost, c2 is the costs of further treatment such as smelting cost and refining cost per tonne of
final product, b is the mining cost per tonne of ore, and a is waste removal cost per tonne. Determination of Ulitmate Pit • The final pit limits define what is economically mineable from a given deposit It identifies which blocks should be mined and which ones should be left in the ground.
• In a effort to identify the blocks to be mined, an economic block model is created first from the geologic grade model.
• This is done by assuming production and process costs and commodity prices at current economic conditions (i.e. current costs and prices).
• Then using the economic block values, each positive block is further checked whether its value can pay for the removal of overlying waste blocks. The analysis is based on the breakeven calculation that check if undiscounted profits obtained from a given ore block can pay for the undiscounted cost of mining the waste blocks.
• This analysis is done by using computer programs that either utilizes the "cone mining" method or the Lerchs and Grossmann (LG) algorithm. Methods of Finding Ultimate pit size • Manual Method
• Floating or moving cone method
• dynamic programming
• the Lerchs and Grossmann algorithm based on graph theory
• Korobov algorithm
• genetic algorithm • In designing the ultimate pit, the engineer will assign values to the physical and economic parameters.
• The ultimate pit limit will represent the maximum boundary of all material meeting these criteria. The material contained in the pit will meet two objectives.
• A block will not be mined unless it can pay all costs for its mining, processing, and marketing and for stripping the waste above the block.
• For conservation of resources, any block meeting the first objective will be included in the pit.
• The result of these objectives is the design that will maximize the total profit of the pit based on the physical and economic parameters used.
• As these parameters change in the future, the pit design may also change. Because the values of the parameters are not uniquely known at the time of design, the engineer may wish to design the pit for a range of values to determine the most important factors and their effect on the ultimate pit limit. MANUAL DESIGN • Floating or moving cone algorithm is one of the easiest and fastest algorithms for determining the final pit limits. In addition, mining operational restrictions on various slopes can be applied to this method perfectly.
• This method, which was first described by Carlson, Erickson, O’Brain and Pana (1966), works on an economical block model of the deposit. Method Description • For each positive (ore) block, this method involves constructing a cone with sides oriented parallel to the pit slope angles, and then determining the value of the cone by summing the values of blocks enclosed within it.
• If the value of the cone is positive, all blocks within the cone are mined.
• This process starts from the uppermost level and moves downward searching for positive blocks.
• The process continues until no positive cones remain in the block model. Mine Production Scheduling • The open pit mine production scheduling problem can be defined as specifying the sequence in which blocks should be removed from the mine in order to maximize the total discounted profit from the mine subject to a variety of constraints. The constraints may involve the following :
• mill throughput (mill feed and mill capacity)
• volume of material extracted per period
• blending constraints
• stockpile related constraints
• logistic constraints
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