A small gold mining company wanted to develop a new open pit adjacent to their existing operations. They wanted a mine plan that would make use of waste material to raise a tailings dam. MEC Mining developed a detailed and staggered mine plan that meet the client’s brief of supplying waste for the tailings dam lift, while economically extracting gold. In addition to the client’s requirements, MEC’s plan made use of detailed 3D modelling of the excavation. This outlined key operational requirements, making the plan achievable and giving the operations department a good understanding of the overall strategy.

Key Issues
• Ore body modelling in 3rd party block model.
• Cut-off grade to be determined with economic modelling.
• Stripping ratio minimisations needs to consider equipment constraints.
• Material volume by type target required for tailings dam lift.
• Pit design had potential to intercept old workings full of water.

Our Solution
• Conversion of the block model and audit of outputs to ensure QA/QC.
• Calculation of economic cut-off grade.
• Ore body modelling at cut-off grade.
• Review of pit design parameters to include equipment and geotechnical constraints.
• Pit and ramp design by bench to minimise stripping ratio.
• Generated reserves by bench and waste type.
• Approximate mining schedule for equipment and plant feed duration.
• 3D graphical representation of excavation to allow communication to the operations and management teams.