A hybrid intelligent optimization method for multiple metal
grades optimization(Yu, Shiwei; Zhu, Kejun; He,
Yong)Sept2012;SOURCE: Neural Computing & Applications;Sep2012,
Vol. 21 Issue 6, p1391)
Theory and method of genetic-neural optimizing cut-off grade and
grade of crude ore(Conference Paper)(Yong He, Kejun Zhu, Si-wei
Gao, Ting Liu, Yue Li)-----ELSEVIERExpert Systems with Applications
(Volume 36, Issue 4, May 2009, Pages 76177623)Volume 36, Issue 4,
May 2009, Pages 76177623/// Source: DBLPSchool of Economics and
Management, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan Hubei 430074,
ChinaExpert Syst. Appl 01/2009; 36:7617-7623.
DOI:10.1016/j.eswa.2008.09.018
Using a Combination of Genetic Algorithm and the Grid Search
Method to Determine Optimum Cutoff Grades of Multiple Metal
DepositsInternational Journal of Surface Mining, Reclamation and
EnvironmentVolume 18, Issue 1, 2004DOI:10.1076/ijsm.18.1.60.23543M.
Ataei & M. Osanloopages 60-78
The grade selection rule of the metal mines; an empirical study
on copper mines Takayoshi Shinkumaa,, Takashi Nishiyamab ----
ELSEVIERResources Policy Volume 26, Issue 1, March 2000, Pages
3138
Methods for Calculation of Optimal Cutoff Grades in Complex Ore
DepositsM. Ataei,M. OsanlooJournal of Mining Science, September
2003,Volume 39,Issue 5,pp 499-507
THE CHOICE OF CUT-OFF GRADE IN MINING Rd Cairns, T
Shinkuma------ ELSEVIERResource Policy 29(2003), 75-81 / SCIENCE
DIRECT
Cut-off Grade Economics - IntroductionKelsey, R. D.---SME, 16th
Application of Computers and Operations Research in the Mineral
Industry - 1979,PAGES: 7/PUBLICATION DATE-1/1/79, ISBN:
0-89520-261-1
GENERAL BACKGROUND THEORY OF CUT-OFF GRADES, Taylor
H.K.(1972)Instituitions Of Mining And Mettallurgy
Transactions,A160-179
CUT-OFF GRADE-SOME FURTHER REFLECTIONSTaylor H.K.(1985)/
Instituitions Of Mining And Mettallurgy Transactions,A204-216
Determination of Optimum Cut-off Grade for Metalliferous Deposit
using Mathematical Programming Technique: Journal of Mines, Metals
and Fuels, Vol.52,No.12, pp.405-409, Dec.2004.
Development of a Computer Model for Determination of Cut-off
Grade for Metalliferous Deposits: Journal of Mines, Metals and
Fuels, Vol. 54, No. 6&7, pp. 147-152, June-July, 2006.
Feasibility Study of Strategic Mine Planning: A Review on
Underground Coal Mines Transition into Opencast Coal Mines
Pritam Biswas1 Abstract
This paper presents an overview of selecting optimum cut-off
grade while doing mine production planning, which is a very
important subject of mine design process. One of the most important
issues in mine production planning is the cut-off grade which is
simply a grade used to distinguish between ore and waste. Waste
materials may either be left in place or sent to waste dump. Ore is
sent to the mill for further processing. Lower cutoff grade causes
higher amounts of ore to be processed and subsequently lower
amounts of waste materials to be dumped resulted in fluctuations in
the cash flow of a mining project. Dumping waste is accompanied
with the rehabilitation cost which will affect the overall cost of
final production and also the optimum cutoff grade. Rehabilitation
cost is the cost per tone of rehabilitating material of a
particular type of rock after it has been dumped as waste. One of
the most popular algorithms for determination of the optimum
cut-off grade is Lanes method. Lane formulated the cut-off grade
optimization, but he did not consider rehabilitation cost during
optimization process. This cost item should be evaluated first, and
then considered during cut-off grade optimization process. In this
paper rehabilitation cost is inserted directly into cut-off grade
optimization process using Lanes theory. The cut-off grades
obtained using suggested method will be more realistic rather than
ones by using the original form of the Lanes formulations.
Keywords: Strategic, Optimisation, Opencast, Underground,
Transition
Introduction
In India the demand of coal is increasing day by day but the
number of opencast mines is being the same and its getting reduced
day by day and the future is going to be depend on the underground
coal mines and on the abandoned underground coal mines, but the
phenomenal growth and demand rate can be attained and full fill if
and only if the coal production in the country laying greater
emphasis on the Opencast mining. Both from the considerations of
volume of production as well as cost of production, the Opencast
Mining prove its supremacy. So, for the same reason and continuity
this paper exhibits a case study on transition of existing
underground mines into an opencast mine of BHP Billiton Mine in
Australia and some guidelines that to be follow. Snowden completed
a study of a large ore body with proposed opencast through an
existing underground operation. The study considered the best
combined mine plan, include showing which areas of the underground
mine should be extracted from underground methods ahead of opencast
mining. Then, a dynamic programming mathematical program is used to
evaluate the optimum value of a combined opencast and underground
operation. The results generated in the case study presented herein
provide a clear focus and direction for the next level of detailed
mine design and planning.For this study, earlier investigations had
established that a change in the opencast pushback sequence to
accommodate a conventional underground mining option resulted in a
significant loss of overall project value. Therefore, each block
mined from underground must carry an opportunity cost corresponding
to the value lost from the opencast.
Factors To Be Consider:
Grade Profile
The mining of an opencast through the high grade with an
underground mine requires there to be sufficient grade material to
be available after underground mining in order to make opencast
mining viable.
Underground Mining Method
Mining an opencast through an underground mine requires that the
voids be left stable after underground mining. Caving methods are
unlikely to allow for future opencast mining. Often, the
underground mining voids will need to be backfilled, increasing the
initial underground mining cost.
Timing
Given that the high grade would have been extracted by the
opencast at some stage, underground mining can be considered a
double up of mining costs. Although this is true, the benefit of
underground mining is its potential to access higher grades much
earlier than the opencast. In this case, the discounted revenue
benefits of early, high grade will partially compensate for the
additional costs. The earlier the high grade is mined, the more
attractive underground mining becomes.
Capital Constraints
Underground mining may not provide a better economic outcome
overall than opencast mining; especially as underground production
rates are often significantly lower than opencast production rates
(for the same deposit). However, a lower production, high grade
underground mine may be employed as a starter case to reduce the
capital funding required. Cash flows generated from the underground
mine may be used to fund an opencast expansion. Without this staged
approach the deposit may not be developed at all.
Methodology
The optimisation process used for this process is iterative. At
this stage, there is no single tool can be simultaneously optimise
an opencast and underground mine plan. For this paper it is
considered that the overall value of the project is equal to the
value of open cast as a stand-alone consideration, plus the value
of underground plan, minus the lost through depleting underground
resources from the opencast plan. In general a three step process
is followed (B. Roberts et al., 2013):i. Opencast optimisation,
wherein an optimal opencast only sequence and schedule is
determined.ii. Underground with pit optimisation: use the schedule
to determine the discounted value of the each block being mined
from the potential underground mining value from the potential
underground mining value and the underground is optimised on the
net objective.iii. Combined opencast and underground optimisation:
the opencast and underground sequences are integrated into an
overall project schedule to determine a combined actual value. iv.
1 no restrictions1 all restricted3 one restricted3 two
restricted
Opencast Optimisation
The standalone opencast is optimised using a combination of
Blastor pit optimisation tool and the COMET cut off grade and
schedule optimiser (King, 2001; Wooller, 2007). Blastor (Stone et
al., 2007) originated as a tool for completing pit optimisation of
multiple complex iron ore deposits. The tool has been successfully
applied to other types of projects, such as base metal deposits.
Blastor uses a mixed integer programming formulation (MIP) to
produce an optimised pushback sequence. These aggregations are too
small to form practical pushbacks, so another algorithm is applied
to generate pushback designs (termed Shells) of a more suitable
size. The key strength of this tool is its ability to optimise the
under blending constraints and to incorporate discounting. For this
project, the Blastor output (in the form of an optimum mining
sequence) is exported to a software tool called COMET for
optimisation of the mining schedule as clearly shown in the Fig. 1.
(B. Roberts et al., 2013)
Fig. 1 Blasor Shells (plan view) forming optimum opencast
sequenceUnderground with pit optimisation
Block Ranking
When optimising a schedule for a single mining operation the
value ranking of a block for mining is determined by variables such
as the net value per tonne, net mill return or net smelter return.
In this project, however, the ranking variable must include the
opportunity cost represented by opencast mining. If the discounted
value of a block is greater when mined by opencast then it should
not be extracted from underground. Therefore, in order to rank
blocks correctly for an optimised underground-with-pit strategy, a
measure of incremental value (IV) was developed. When considering a
single block, the discounted value that the block adds to the
overall operation, its IV, will be equal to the discounted value
when mined by the underground mine, minus the discounted value of
the block if it were to be mined by the opencast (B. Roberts et
al.,2013 ),see equation
(1)
The methodology for calculating OPDV and UGDV is shown in
Equations 2 and 3, below. All price and cost parameters applied are
assumed to be constant over the life of the mine (B. Roberts et
al., 2013).
(2)
(3)
The variables used in Equation 1 are defined below (B. Roberts
et al., 2013):
Opencast mining cost is not included in the opencast discounted
value. This is because the opencast mining blocks have already been
committed for extraction. The decision is whether the block is
worth more to mine and process from underground or from Opencast.
An unknown in Equation 2 is the timing of underground mining, which
is required in order to determine its UGDV and hence its IV.
Obtaining this data would require the underground to already have
been scheduled, creating a circular problem. In order to circumvent
this circular problem, an undiscounted underground value, UGV0, is
used to calculate the value measure, IV0 (i.e. the incremental
value assuming underground extraction in year 0). In the presence
of constant parameters, this measure represents the maximum
possible UGDV and IV for each block. Any block with a positive IV0
value is a potential candidate for extraction by stoping. However,
having a positive IV0 does not guarantee that a block will add
value if taken by the underground operation. The later the block is
taken in the underground mine schedule, the lower the UGDV will
become due to the effect of discounting.There will come a point in
time (before a block is taken by the opencast) when the OPDV of a
block exceeds its UGDV, at which time the IV of that block will
become negative. The use of IV0 as a ranking measure allowed all
potentially value-adding underground mining blocks to be identified
(B. Roberts et al., 2013).The higher the IV0, the more likely the
block will add value to the operation being extracted from
underground. The differences between OPDV (top), IV0 (middle) and
UGV0 (bottom) for a section of the ore body are shown in the Fig.
2. The opencast is revealed to have more potential ore than the
underground operation due to a lower cut-off grade. However, much
of this material has very low discounted value due to the long mine
life. The high value blocks are concentrated in the upper levels of
the south end of the ore body. The UGV0 and IV0 of blocks in the
north end of the ore body are very similar due to the low OPDV in
this area. The key difference between UGV0 and IV0 is in the south
end of the mine where the pit commences. Hence, the IV0 parameter
biases towards high grade blocks mined late in the opencast mine
life coming from the picture.
Fig. 2 Representation of resource (looking west) for a)
OPDV>0, b) UGV0>0 and c) IV0>0, (B. Roberts et al.,
2013)
Stope optimisation
The process of creating mining outlines from the IV0 resource
model is conducted using snowdens stopesizor software (Myers et
al., 2007). Stopesizor modifies a geological block model to
identify the optimum mining outline for a range of cut-off values
(usually grade-based). This stope resource generation is achieved
by constructing selective mining blocks (SMBs), where the SMB
represents a minimum practical mining geometry. Each SMB comprises
a contiguous group of resource blocks that honour minimum
dimension, bearing and dip constraints for each axis. Stopesizor
has the flexibility to optimise mining outlines for a variety of
Underground mining methods by allowing the user to specify minimum
practical mining shapes and orientations. Mining capacity
constraints and the effect of discounting mean that not all of this
material can be mined from the underground mine in an optimum
combined underground and opencast operation. However, the analysis
does indicate that there is potential to increase the overall value
of the operation by mining a significant amount of South Area ore
from underground (B. Roberts et al., 2013).
Production activities
The basic underground production unit is the ventilation
district, for which production and development constraints are well
understood. This project included the design of conceptual
development layouts for the South Area and the creation of suitable
new ventilation districts for an underground-with-pit scenario. In
order to reduce the optimisation problem to a manageable size for
efficient computation, stope blocks are accumulated into a series
of groups or bins. It is assumed that within each group, the
contained blocks are to be depleted at the same rate. In order to
produce the best possible approximation of a block by block
optimisation, each group contains blocks with similar properties.
The blocks are grouped according to the ventilation district, IV0
outline, and the year in which the blocks were planned to be
extracted by the opencast. The tonnage and grade for each group is
determined by summing the tonnages and weight-averaging the grades
of the contained resource blocks. Each ventilation district is a
distinct geometric zone; hence, grouping blocks by this property
means that they may be able to be practically extracted at the same
rate, due to the location of development and mining equipment (B.
Roberts et al., 2013).The stope optimisation process generates a
series of nested mining outlines at IV0 cut-offs between $0/t and
$100/t intervals. The number of tonnes added to the outline at each
interval was substantial. As such, it is assumed that material
within each of the intervals can be grouped together. Material
contained within the highest IV0 interval and so on. Geotechnical
sequencing constraints are not considered in this high level study,
but will need to be incorporated in subsequent studies in order to
verify their impact on the optimal solution. In addition to being
grouped by ventilation district, blocks are also grouped by their
planned opencast extraction year. The extraction year is the
governing factor which is determines at what time the IV value of a
block becomes negative. This grouping allows those blocks that had
a negative IV due to the year of underground extraction to be
omitted from the optimal outline (B. Roberts et al., 2013).
Development Activities
In order to optimise the schedule, it is necessary to provide
development parameters for each ventilation district. Because the
development designs cannot be finalised until after the analysis
had generated a final stoping inventory, it was decided to use
conceptual designs to generate indicative parameters in the form of
(B. Roberts et al., 2013).
Y = A + (B + C)* X (4)
Where Y is total development metres, A is fixed capital
development metres (development required to access the highest IV0
cut-off stope in a ventilation district), B is variable capital
development (metres per tonne of stope ore), C is variable
operating development (metres per tonne of stope ore), and X is
stoping ore tonnes. The fixed capital development is further
subdivided into two categories: common capital development and
access capital development. Common capital development is
development required by more than one ventilation district. Access
capital development is development required to access the highest
IV0-cut-off stope in a ventilation district. Framing the
development required for each ventilation district to be estimated
and adjusted during the schedule optimisation process. Common
capital development is identified and appropriate dependencies are
imposed to account for the shared nature of this development (B.
Roberts et al., 2013).
Underground Optimisation Technique
Schedule optimisation is conducted using Snowdens Evaluator
software package. Evaluator is a high level strategic scheduler
based on MIP formulation solved by a CPLEX engine (ILOG CPLEX,
2007). The scheduler optimises the timing and cut-off grades for
both stoping and development activities. MIP involves determining
the optimal value of a series of decision variables which reflect
the mathematical model generated. In this optimisation, there was a
decision variable for each activity in each period (except where
explicitly stated otherwise by the user).The output for each
decision variable reflects the portion of each activity that is
completed in a period. After optimising the schedule for
incremental value using Snowdens Evaluator software, the depleted
opencast and underground schedules were combined. This was bought
forward metal (and hence revenue) for the planned operation (B.
Roberts et al., 2013). Combined open pit and underground
optimisation
Objective of combined schedule optimisation
The work described above is aimed at optimising an underground
operation around the fixed open pit schedule. A further modelling
stage using COMET was required to (B. Roberts et al., 2013):
i. Determine the relative value of alternative underground
opencast combinations. For example, depletion of ore from the pit
schedule may significantly reduced value.ii. Allow the COMET
optimiser to choose whether to fill pit feed shortfalls from the
opencast stockpile or from the underground mine.iii. Indicate
optimum life for the underground operationiv. Determine the
processing destinations for underground ore.
COMET modelling
A comet model is constructed to model the current proposed ore
processing configuration, stockpiles, operating costs, capital
costs and operational constraints. The opencast mine is represented
as a set of pushback block models and each underground case as a
dummy opencast pushback. Blocks mined in each underground opt on
are excluded for the resource available to the opencast. For the
final optimisation run, COMET is set up so that if all underground
material available in a particular period has to be mined, COMET
can choose whether to process the ore in that period or stockpile
it for later processing. This approach ensures that the underground
schedules were feasible. In this stage of this project, COMET is
used to determine the optimum combined opencast and underground
schedule from the twin inputs of optimum underground schedule and
optimum pushback sequence. COMET used a more conventional block
value ranking variable as the problem of completion between
underground and opencast has now been resolved; the variable chosen
is net return per mill hour.
Final economic results
COMET generated the mining and processing scheduled that yielded
the maximum discounted value (NPV) under the given constraints. The
best value is yielded by case UGI in Fig. 3 shows how this
additional value is achieved.
Fig. 3 Total copper production schedule, (B. Roberts et al.,
2013)The combined discounted value of this was 9% higher than the
previous base case, which ceased underground production much
earlier. Interestingly, no resources that were contained within the
first third of the opencast life were selected for mining by the
underground. So clearly, discounting differential plays a large
part in the economic decision and the opencast must have a long
life in order to justify such a strategy. In another case analysed
by Snowden, which had a 10 year opencast life, there were no blocks
that were preferred for underground mining (Snowden, 2013).
CONCLUSION
In tough times, it is worth exploring all options to reduce unit
costs and minimise risk. Considering a conversion of mining methods
to lower scale underground mining may provide one such avenue.
1. Increases in NPV are achieved by mining high grade
underground ore earlier in the project and by making potential
shortfalls in an opencast ore production (B. Roberts et al.,
2013).2. The underground operation should employ a declining
cut-off strategy in order to maximise value (B. Roberts et al.,
2013).3. NO stoping should take place within the 30 year pit
limits.4. The underground optimiser gives planners a guideline for
the production rate in each mine area in any given period and what
the target average grade should be (B. Roberts et al., 2013).5.
Value could be improved by repeating the process with knowledge of
how the quality of material produced by the underground operation
should be scheduled in order to better complement the opencast
schedule.6. Analysis of the results indicated a suitable time for
closing the underground mine in favour of an opencast only
operation.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank ISM librarian for granting permission to
access the books and journals available in the library for
successfully peruse my thesis paper.
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