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Introduction

• 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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