Steve Walters Driving Productivity by Increasing Feed Quality Through Application Of Innovative Grade Engineering Technologies

Transcription

1 Steve Walters Driving Productivity by Increasing Feed Quality Through Application Of Innovative Grade Engineering Technologies MINING GEOLOGY

2 MINING HAS WELL KNOWN PRODUCTIVITY PROBLEM Millennium super cycle Australian Multi-factored Productivity MINING GEOLOGY

3 DECLINING GRADE AS A MAJOR COMPONENT OF PRODUCTIVITY Anglo American PGE Grades After Rule et al 2015 Global Cu Head Grades MINING GEOLOGY

4 ALIGNING CRC ORE TO THE CHALLENGE OF FEED QUALITY GOING LARGE DOESN T DELIVER PRODUCTIVITY GAINS POINT SOLUTIONS DON T DRIVE TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE Increasing production with duplication (more trucks, more mills, etc.) delivered higher Capex and lower productivity Reducing Opex has helped productivity Now need to focus innovation on improving feed quality not just quantity Mining is not short of potential new or better technologies in and out of sector Challenge is to combine point solutions into integrated solution stacks Delivering transformational change requires a clear view of system-value MINING GEOLOGY

5 AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO IMPROVING FEED QUALITY Taking a New View of Ore Deposit Heterogeneity Sustaining System Value and Execution Selecting Effective Coarse Separation Technologies Mapping Economic Benefit Over Life of Mine MINING GEOLOGY

6 DRIVEN BY COARSE SEPARATION IN DIG AND DELIVER INTERFACE MINING GEOLOGY

7 SHARE WHERE THE GRADE ENGINEERING JOURNEY BEGAN MINING GEOLOGY

8 COARSE SEPARATION OPPORTUNITY DRIVEN BY FIVE LEVERS SEPARATION MECHANISM Screens Diverters Jigs MINING GEOLOGY

9 GRADE ENGINEERING EXPLOITS ORE DEPOSIT HETEROGENEITY MINING GEOLOGY

10 GRADE ENGINEERING EXPLOITS ORE DEPOSIT HETEROGENEITY Heterogeneity can occur at mining scale (10 s of metres) or particle scale (10 s of cm) Compositing smooths out grade heterogeneity which is regarded as not useful in current practice Coarse separation is just another rock property attribute Property needs to be embedded into routine logging and testing Cu at blast bench scale Cu at drill core scale MINING GEOLOGY

11 COMPARATIVE YIELD/RESPONSE RANKING ACROSS LEVERS RESPONSE RANKING CURVES Building integrated coarse separation solution stacks needs a comparative testing regime This includes small-scale geometallurgical type testing as well as bulk testing Facilitates comparative ranking and definition of complimentary versus competitive levers Grade Engineering involves a Response Ranking approach to facilitate mine planning MINING GEOLOGY

12 COMPARATIVE RESPONSE RANKINGS BETWEEN DEPOSITS RESPONSE RANKING BY DEPOSIT 75th 25th percentile Comparative deposit scale Response Rankings for preferential grade deportment by size MINING GEOLOGY

13 COMPARATIVE RESPONSE RANKINGS WITHIN A DEPOSIT MINING GEOLOGY

14 EXAMPLE OF RESPONSE RANKINGS IN RESOURCE BLOCK MODEL 500 m Porphyry Cu deposit block model MINING GEOLOGY

15 USING RESPONSE RANKINGS IN DYNAMIC MINE PLANNING Selection of optimal coarse separation lever combinations and yield/response is an objective value function in mine planning software MINING GEOLOGY

16 OUTCOMES DEFINE ASSIGNMENT OF SEPARATION DOMAINS Mill Dump leach Waste Grade by size Differential blasting GRADE ENGINEERED MINING GEOLOGY

17 EVALUATING COARSE SEPARATION AS A VALUE PROPOSITION POTENTIAL BENEFITS Reduce Capex Improve economic returns e.g. NPV, IRR Manage bottlenecks Extend mine life More dynamic operating scenarios Unlock stalled feasibility projects MINING GEOLOGY

18 SOME TAKE HOME MESSAGES AROUND GRADE ENGINEERING GRADE ENGINEERING IS AN INTEGRATED SYSTEM-VIEW APPROACH Solution stacks more resilient than point solutions for coarse separation consider rougher and cleaner type circuit designs ATTRIBUTES NEED TO BE EMBEDDED INTO GEOLOGICAL DEFINITION Coarse separation is simply another machine-rock performance attribute that needs to populated into resource block modelling OPPORTUNITY IS DRIVEN BY SCALE-DEPENDENT HETEROGENEITY Current geological and resource definition practice smooths out heterogeneity which restricts understanding of opportunity MINING GEOLOGY

19 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TO CRC ORE CONSORTIUM MINERS Anglo American Anglo Gold Ashanti BHP Billiton Newcrest Glencore Teck Sumitomo METS Hatch IMDEX JKTech METS Ignited Orica Sedgman Sodern METS ASSOCIATES MIPAC, Whittle, Split Datamine, SRK Comet, Scantech Gekko, Bear Rock RESEARCHERS AMIRA Mining 3 Clareo CSIRO Curtin Kellogg s Institute (KIN) MRIWA NRC Canada QUT University of Adelaide The University of Qld UTAS MINING GEOLOGY

20 Steve Walters Driving Productivity by Increasing Feed Quality Through Application Of Innovative Grade Engineering Technologies MINING GEOLOGY