mine cost accounting often express product-related costs in the mill (and frequently some or

all of the downstream costs) as a unit cost per tonne of ore. Doing this is similar to expressing
rock-related costs in an open pit mine as a cost per tonne of ore, as discussed earlier

la contabilidad de costos de la mina a menudo expresa los costos relacionados con el producto
en la planta (y con frecuencia algunos o todos los costos derivados) como un costo unitario por
tonelada de mineral. Hacer esto es similar a expresar los costos relacionados con la roca en
una mina a cielo abierto como un costo por tonelada de mineral, como se explicó
anteriormente

When I was a graduate student at the University of Arizona I took a Surface Mine
Design course. When the time came for final projects I studied a small
copper/molybdenum deposit in South America. I used Maptek Vulcan Pit
Optimiser to determine the ultimate pit limits, where to design push backs, and to
determine the preliminary schedule and costs. I learned a lot about the deposit, as
well as some best practices for using Vulcan Pit Optimiser.
The algorithm behind Pit Optimiser was developed in 1964 by two scientists
working for IBM. Helmut Lerchs and Ingo Grossmann applied operations research
to determine a graph equation for the ultimate 3D pit limits. The algorithm is based
on maximising the undiscounted profits; based on known revenues and costs for
each point in the deposit, and the geometrical constraints. Today it is an industry
standard and is widely known as the Lerchs Grossmann (LG) algorithm.
After studying the algorithm in-depth, and now applying my industry knowledge of
its capabilities, here are some noteworthy best practices:
1. The original 1964 algorithm does not explicitly discount block values to consider
time value of money. Nowadays you can leverage off built-in discount adjustments
and positional mining cost adjustment factors to quickly account for increased cost
and decreased value according to depth.
2. Block models are the logical storage houses for the input financials and output
pit variables. Today .bcf scripts can be used to populate the cost and revenue
variables for millions of blocks in a repeatable manner. That coupled with the
validation tools in advanced statistics and block viewing tools, and you can rest
assured that the optimised pit is based on intended financials and has produced a
valid result.
3. Using an optimiser block size similar to the minimum mining unit will work well to
obtain realistic results in a reasonable amount of time. Pit Optimiser has a block
resizer that allows you to re-block the model on the fly. Increasing the block size
may allow you time to run and evaluate more scenarios, leading to better results.
4. Multiple pit analysis is a great tool to determine logical locations for push backs.
If you see that an incremental financial adjustment yields a large change in pit
tonnage, it means a pushback may be just what you need to target that higher
grade material. The built-in analysis reports and charts are a great way to identify
these sensitivities.
5. You are only at the beginning of the design process once LG pit strings are
produced. Since Pit Optimiser is built into Vulcan, it is easy to analyse and
incorporate all of the information the tool provides into a pit design. Additional tools
like Haulage Profile and Chronos allow you to obtain an even better idea of your
project’s cost, which can be fed back into Pit Optimiser for an improved model.
For more information about Vulcan Pit Optimiser, or Vulcan training and support,
contact your local Maptek office