(Weighting 40% of total unit marks) Due date: Nov 1, 2018 16:00
Students are to design a suitable open pit for the deposit described. The candidate should include in their answer the following:
Design a detailed surface mine excavation plan.
Detail development requirements.
Detail Production requirements including a full description of the method selected.
Number of production units required/rate of production/other scheduling.
Describe loading/haulage requirements
Equipment
Processing
Personnel
Safety
Briefly describe power & drainage requirements
As well as any other salient points as required by the mining system, for economic analysis use current market prices in A$ for the commodity as required. Accurate costing is not an essential aspect to the project but some notional economic modelling is required to illustrate the viability of the method detailed.
State and justify all assumptions.
A copper-gold-silver mine is located in a desert at an elevation of 3,050 m above sea level. Current level of 127,000 t/d ore throughput. Production f 46.9 Mt/y of sulphide ore Grading 1.9% copper, containing 776,400 t of copper, 129,000 oz of gold and 3.28 Moz of silver. The mine also treats 12.6 Mt of oxide ore grading 1.08% copper, with an output of 140,300 t of electro-won cathode copper.
The deposit is related geologically to three porphyry bodies intruded along a major fault system. Primary hydrothermal sulphide ore grades at between 0.2% and 1% copper. Subsequent weathering and uplifting created a barren, leached cap, up to 180 m thick, over a high-grade supergene enriched ore, both overlying the primary sulphides. Primary sulphide mineralisation includes pyrite, chalcopyrite and bornite, with covellite and chalcocite in the enriched zone. Some areas contain significant oxide copper oxides overlying the sulphides.
Proven and probable reserves estimated at1, 990 Mt grading 1.23% copper. Initial mining reserves totalled 662 Mt grading 2.12% copper. The stripping ratio will average around 1.7:1 over the full life of the project, for a current 127,000 t/day of ore.