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Signature Sponsor
February 20, 2019 - We are pleased to announce the upcoming five-day short-course:
Strategic Mine Planning using GEOVIA Whittle - May 6-10, 2019 - 5 days - Toronto, Canada
Who Should Attend
The Strategic Mine Planning and Optimization course is a comprehensive five-day course designed for mining and resource industry professionals including directors, project managers, mine planners, mining engineers, geoscientists, geologists, metallurgists, financial analyst, and decision makers from exploration to operations. It is ideally suited to those from industry who wish to gain a more in depth and hands-on knowledge of modern strategic mine planning and optimization software tools and theory.
Course Delivery
• Lectures on theoretical concepts • Documented step by step computer labs instructions • Incremental exercises and project work • Comparative analysis of results for each step • Real mining project data including iron ore, gold-copper, and oil sands deposits
Course Description
Strategic mine planning optimization is the backbone of mining operations. In mining projects, deviations from optimal mine plans will result in significant financial losses, future financial liabilities, delayed reclamation, and resource sterilization. The life-of-mine production schedule determines the order of extraction of materials and their destination over the mine-life. In this course, principles and fundamental concepts involved in strategic mine planning and optimization are presented. Subjects covered are block value calculations; mining revenues and costs; open pit limit optimization using manual method, floating cone, and 2D & 3D Lerchs and Grossmann algorithms; Pseudo Flow algorithm, life-of-mine production planning; mine-life estimation; cut-off grade optimization and Lane’s theory; simultaneous optimization; multi-mine multi-process production scheduling, and an approach to managing grade uncertainty and the impact on pit limit optimization. Mathematical optimization models and case studies for long-term open pit mine planning will be presented. Blending problem formulations are setup and solved in Excel Solver. The course complements theory with comprehensive instructions and hands-on experience completing a project and two exercises using the GEOVIA Whittle strategic mine planning software (ver 4.71). The participants will work with iron ore, gold-copper, and oil sands block models. Comparative analysis of different production scenarios, stockpiling, cutoff optimization, SIMO, multi-mine and their impacts on the bottom line of the mining business is illustrated. Emphasis is put on generating minable, practical mine plans that improves NPV of the operation.
Outcomes of the course include:
• Understand concepts of strategic mine planning • How optimization improves economic performance • Complete a strategic mine planning study in GEOVIA Whittle • Estimate probable and proven reserves using GEOVIA Whittle • What costs should be included in pit optimization • Principles of Lerchs & Grossmann 3D algorithm • Principles of Pseudo Flow algorithm • Pit limits optimization with practical push-backs • Skin Analysis to establish final pit limits • Generate optimal shells, reports and schedules • Push-back design with a minimum mining width • NPV practical push-back design • Production scheduling – using contractors • Advanced techniques with mining direction control – oil sands case study • Buffer Stockpiles and Extractive Blending – iron ore case study • Understand cut-off optimization & Lane’s Theory – gold-copper case study • Advanced simultaneous optimization techniques (SIMO) – gold-copper case study • Calculate sensitivities to develop risk reduction strategy • New feature of CAPEX optimization • Multi-mine scheduling, feeding multi-process processing plant – iron ore case study • Managing the risk associated with grade uncertainty – iron ore case study • Understand the potential value of the deposit • Target areas for future drilling • Quantify the Impact of grade uncertainty on scheduling and pit limits – iron ore case study
About the Instructor
Hooman Askari is a professor of mining engineering in the School of Mining and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Alberta, Canada. He teaches and conducts research into mine planning & design and simulation of mining systems. Hooman is a registered professional mining engineer with more than two decades of operational, consulting, research, and teaching experience in the area of open pit mine planning and design. He consults as the Principal Engineer on long-term to short-term open pit production scheduling optimization and simulation of mining systems through OptiTek Mining Consulting Ltd. |
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