SME Annual Meeting
Feb. 28-Mar. 03, 2010, Phoenix, AZ
PRACTICAL FINAL PIT DEPTH CONSIDERING THE FUTURE UNDERGROUND MINING- A CASE STUDY
E. Bakhtavar, Urmia Univ. of Tech., Urmia, Iran
F. S. Namin, Zanjan Univ., Zanjan, Iran
K. Shahriar, Amirkabir Univ. of Tech., Tehran, Iran
K. Oraee, Univ. of Stirling, Stirling, UK
ABSTRACT
It is considered that the most economical method for the
exploitation of Gol-e-Gohar Area 3 iron ore mine is to combine open-pit
and underground methods. In this regard, the most critical problem is
the determination of optimal final pit depth. In this paper, a method
which was recently introduced on the basis of economical block
models of open-pit and underground is used to determine optimal final
open-pit depth of Gol-e-Gohar Area 3 mine with due regards to the
future underground mining option. Considering a low cost and
productive underground method as a feasible alternative for extraction
of the lower part of this deposit, room and pillar was selected. It is
concluded that after the assessment and comparison of different
values for depth, optimal final open-pit depth was determined to be
equal to 285 m.
INTRODUCTION
Open-pit method is usually considered to be more favorable and
dominant than underground method, particularly as regards recovery,
production capacity, mechanizability, grade control and cut off grade,
ore loss and dilution, economics, and safety. While, underground
mining can be considered as being more acceptable from
environmental and social point of view, with a smaller footprint than an
open-pit of comparable capacity.
It is remarkable that when an ore deposit changes much in
geometry along the strike, especially at the end of the deposit, the
stripping ratio will be too large in the case that the deposit is entirely
mined by open-pit method. In this regard, it is more suitable to mine
the deposit by combined method; that is to say, the end part of the ore
body should be mined by underground method. In the case, the most
important question emerges: where is the optimal final depth for
changing over from open-pit to underground mining?
Finding the optimal final open-pit depth considering the combined
mining has been recently specified as a new challenge for mining
engineers and the related mines. Some of the biggest open-pit mines
worldwide will be achieving their final open-pit limits during the next 10
to 15 years [1]. There are also many mines planning to change from
open-pit to underground mining due to increasing the extraction depth
and environmental considerations [2]. In this regard, block/panel
caving will likely enable the operations as an underground method to
continue achieving a high production rate and low costs [3].
Chuquicamata mine located in the northern part of Chile is a most
famous one including combined of open-pit and black caving [4]. There
are also several other open-pit mines were done, or are planning, or
are in the process of implementing, a transition to underground
alternative. For instance, Palabora and Venetia in South Africa,
Bingham Canyon in USA, Mansa Mina in Chile, Mount Keith and Telfer
in Australia [5], and Kiruna mine in Sweden [6].
The study highlights the determination of optimal final open-pit
depth of Gol-e-Gohar Area 3 mine considering the future underground
mining option, using a methodology [7], which recently was introduced
in this regard.
1 Copyright © 2010 by SME
Preprint 10-033
METHOD DESCRIPTION
The main idea of the utilized method [7] was concluded from the
algorithm of Nilsson, which was initially introduced in 1982 and then in
1992 [8, 9]. In order to reduce the shortcomings of the Nilsson
algorithm and to accomplish some modifications, a number of essential
requirements were added to the algorithm, for instance, to take into
consideration to a suitable crown pillar. The target of the model can be
achieved by comparison between the obtained values of various
scenarios of combined mining.
The new method seek to find an optimal transition depth from
open-pit to underground option including maximum profit through both
open-pit and underground In the method, it is necessary to install a
long range mining plan for deposits. In this instance, the future pit
volume has been split up into several level-cuts as means of
contemplating extraction sequence.
Considering and below each level-cut, an underground option can
be included, but after to bear in mind the most effective crown pillar. At
most, a crown pillar with a height as a multiple of blocks height
considering the selected underground mining method and geotechnical
investigations must be contemplated. Each alternative comprises three
elements are: open-pit level-cuts (independent pit), underground level-
cuts (underground lay-out), and a crown pillar between them.
The main part of the present method is associated with decision
making and selection a combined mining scenario encompasses
maximum NPV. Then, the final pit depth in relation to the selected
scenario is taken into account as an optimum transition depth.
GOL-E-GOHAR AREA 3 IRON ORE
General description of the site
The Gol-e-Gohar iron ore complex (including six Areas) is located
approximately 60 km southwest of Sirjan city, in the Kerman province
of Iran (Fig. 1). The Area 3 zone is approximately 1730 meters above
sea level in an area of planar desert topography. The Area 3 ore body
is generally of tabulate form with an area covering approximately 2200
m in the N-S direction and nearly 3.5 km west of the centre of the
presently mined Area 1 ore body. The closest approach of the two ore
bodies is approximately 1 km [10].
It has been estimated that the Gol-e-Gohar Area 3 ore body has a
length of about 2200 m (N-S) and an average width of nearly 1800 m
(E-W). Overburden and waste rock above the ore zone varies from 95
to 560 m in thickness and the depth of the ore body varies from 95 m
at the north end to 600 m at the southern end. Ore body thickness
varies from 15 to 130 m with an average thickness of 40 m.
The indicated resources have been estimated to be 496 Mt. In
addition, there is an inferred resource of 147 Mt. With a mining rate of
8.1 Mt/a, including 1.16% dilution, and an approximate extraction rate
of 46.04% (with sill pillars in the selected room and pillar method), the
Area 3 ore body has a life of about 28 years, with a potential of another
8 years of operation.

Figure 1. Location of Gol-e-Gohar iron ore complex and Area 3 mine.
Technical considerations of the open-pit option
During the Gol-e-Gohar Area 3 open-pit design, in order to
achieve the relatively high-production rate and large size mine
equipment a bench height of 15 m has been selected. The 15-m bench
height coincides with the block height of 15 m used in the block model.
The pit slopes used in the study are 45 degrees in ore and waste rock
and 32 to 33 degrees in dry overburden, depending on the thickness of
overburden. The slope angles include allowances for the haul road.
Required cleaning of rocks off the final open-pit wall will be done by the
shovel during mining of each individual 15-m bench. If required, a
dozer will be used for ripping at the toe, to ensure that the position of
the wall is in accordance with the design [10].
A 2-m high safety berm which will occupy a width of 4 m was
considered. Allowance is also made for a 2-m wide drainage ditch. The
total required width of the haul road is, therefore, 26 m with a grade of
10%. The fleet of four shovels will be equipped with 9-m3 buckets for
use primarily in ore and 15-m3 buckets for use in overburden. In this
regard, during the production stage 13 to 29 hauling tracks with
capacity of 136 ton will be required. It is essential to support the
operations by using the mining support equipments such as: one wheel
dozer, four track dozers, two motor graders, one water truck, and etc.
Four rotary blast hole drills can be provide the drilling
requirements. Production drilling of blast holes will be carried out by
rotary drills capable of drilling 251 mm holes and will be suitable for
drilling 15 m benches with 2 to 3 m of sub-drill. Also, burden by
spacing in ore as well as waste rock in dry and wet zones are 5.5m*7m
and 5.5m*6m, respectively, whereas in relation to overburden are
8m*10m and 8m*9m in dry and wet zones, respectively. Sub-drilling is
1.5 m in ore and waste rock and 2.5 m in overburden. An allowance
has been made for re-drilling of 5% of the holes to compensate for
locally poor ground conditions.
On an average, blasting will be carried out 3 to 4 times a week. It
is estimated that one ANFO / emulsion truck will be required to meet
the demand. The mine will reach groundwater at elevation 1690 m. It is
assumed that all rock above the groundwater table can be blasted with
ANFO and that 50% of all rock below the groundwater table will be
blasted using slurry, while the remaining 50% will allow use of ANFO.
Provisions have been made for a pump capable of pumping
10000 m3 in 24 hours from a depth of 300 m. Simple ditches along pit
rim perimeters will prevent runoff water from entering the pit.
Technical considerations of the underground option
In order to assess the option of underground mining for this
deposit, certain assumptions have been made to offer a low cost and
productive method for ore extraction. These assumptions are [10]:
• Backfilling of openings will not be economically viable; therefore
mining will be by room and pillar or open stoping methods.
2 Copyright © 2010 by SME
SME Annual Meeting
Feb. 28-Mar. 03, 2010, Phoenix, AZ
• Due to the potential height of the mining, multiple levels would be
required, separated by sill pillars.
• Due to the plunge of the ore body (approximately 20 degrees to
the south) and the potential for low friction contacts (gouge and
broken zones) between the ore zone and hanging wall / foot wall
rocks, it is assumed that pillars left in place will be continuous ribs
generally oriented in a N-S direction (i.e. along dip). This will
prevent the potential for sliding or toppling of the pillars down dip.
Based on the assumptions “room and pillar” mining option was
selected as the most suitable and desired underground method. Room
width is typically governed by rock structure and strength, and can
generally be determined independent of the other criteria. The room
width selected for Gol-e-Gohar is 10 m. The rock support required in
both ore and waste consists of bolts, screen and concrete (for waste).
The 10-m width allows the use of large two-boom jumbos, loaders and
allows trucks to be loaded at the face. Furthermore, pillar width and sill
pillar thickness will be 6.7 m and 10 m, respectively and pillar height
will vary from 60 m at 100-m depth to 9 m at 400 m depth. Under this
condition a 60% of ore extraction and recovery can be obtained.
Due to the depth of the ore body and the amount of overburden,
access must be via a vertical shaft from surface. During the hoist
selection process, it was determined that three hoists, each with two
skips in balance, would be required to hoist 8.1 Mt of ore and 0.081 Mt
of waste per year. A fourth hoist would be required for personnel and
materials. The shafts will be the main access to the ore body for
personnel, materials and ventilation air, and provide for the hoisting of
all ore and waste rock to surface. In order to meet these requirements
economically, it was decided to construct two shafts, namely, a
production shaft and a service shaft. In addition to the two hoisting
shafts an exhaust ventilation shaft will also be required. The production
shaft will be circular, concrete lined with a diameter of 6.71 m. this
shaft will accommodate four 16.8-ton capacity skips. The service one
will also be a circular, concrete lined shaft with a diameter of 7.62 m. It
will accommodate two 16.8-ton capacity skips to be hoisted in balance
using a two-mounted-friction hoist, plus a cage and counterweight, also
in balance, using a tower mounted-friction hoist. The exhaust
ventilation shaft will also be circular, concrete lined with a diameter of
7.62 m. It will be equipped with two 2.8-m diameter, horizontal, axial
vane fans in parallel.
Two crusher stations have been located approximately 900 m
south of the shaft. Each crusher can crush 900 ton/hr with a discharge
of 152 mm. Conveyor belts at the bottom of the crusher will transport
the crushed ore to a 1000-ton bin that will discharge to an inclined
conveyor 1067-mm wide.
A two-boom, electric-hydraulic drill jumbo will drill off a 10-m wide
by 5.5-m high round from a single setup. Each 3.66-m long round will
consist of one hundred and third-one 45-mm diameter holes and break
an average of 3.36 m. The jumbo crew will drill off one of these rounds
per day. A crawler-mounted, Single-boom, electric hydraulic bench drill
will drill 12.5-m long, 64-mm diameter holes on a 1.2-m by 1.4-m
burden and spacing pattern. The bench drill operator will drill six 11-m
long holes per shift. The top slice rounds will be pneumatically loaded
with ANFO prills and detonated with non-electric caps. Each bench
hole will contain 1 m of water gel explosives followed by 8.5 m of
ANFO prills and 0.3 m of collar stemming materials. Powder factors will
be approximately 0.87 kg/m3 for top-cut blasting and 0.47 kg/m3 for
bench blasting.
Broken ore will be loaded into 50-ton trucks using 16-ton loaders.
These trucks will haul a maximum of 500 m to one of the two crushers.
A total of 17 trucks and 15 loaders working three shifts per day will be
required to haul 25962 ton/day to the crushers.
Economical considerations of the open-pit and underground
options
A) Estimation of the annual incomes:
The actual production of the processing plant was determined to
be equal to 6 Mt/year considering a loss of 5% of concentrate to dust in
the plant. Therefore, in order to produce the actual targeted 6 Mt of
concentrate, the annual tonnage of processed ore will be in the range
 SME Annual Meeting
Feb. 28-Mar. 03, 2010, Phoenix, AZ

of 8.7 Mt. The price for concentrate is US$0.235 per Fe unit in Final open-pit depth considering the underground option
concentrate based on US$16/t at 68% Fe. The related data with the According to the method that is used to determine final open-pit
annual incomes achieved from open-pit and underground options is depth with considering to an underground option, it is first necessary
summarized in Table 1 [10]. identifying several scenarios of combined mining on the basis of the
benches height of 15-m in open-pit. Each scenario includes three
Table 1. Annual incomes achieving from open-pit and underground components of open-pit, a crown pillar, and underground. Crown pillar
mining. stability will be dependent on numerous parameters including rock
Characteristic Open-pit underground type, rook quality, rock strength, overburden depth, water influence, in-
Annual concentration (ton) 6000000 6000000 situ rock stress, and pillar geometry. At the north end of the ore body
Price of Fe unit (US$) 0.235 0.235 where the ore zone outcrops at bedrock surface, ore will have to be left
Annual income 96585000 96585000 as a crown pillar beneath approximately 100 m of overburden.

B) Estimation of the costs: Then, through the economical comparison between the scenarios,
the most profitable one can be selected and its final open-pit depth will
The operating costs are based on estimated productivity for each be the optimum transition depth for the case. It is notable that the main
type of mine equipment, on costs for consumables and maintenance assessment is done according to the constructed economical block
material and on the anticipated workforce. In this regard, the total models of open-pit and underground mining.
operating cost was estimated to be equal to 554.65 (US$ million).
As it shown in Fig. 3, with take into account a discount rate of
It is notable that here operating cost is divided into three groups of 12%, a net present value of 63 (US$ million) is achieved due to the
mining, processing, and general and administration. Among the related scenario of open-pit depth of 285 m. It means that the optimal
operating cost groups, processing cost as well as general and final open-pit depth considering the room and pillar mining to be equal
administration cost are the same in both open-pit and underground. An to 285 m achieving a 63 (US$ million) of net present value.
average process operating cost for Area 3 was estimated to be US
$3.00/ton per feed ore, based on a processing rate of 8.1 Mt/a of
undiluted ore resulting is 6 Mt/a of concentrate. In addition, general
and administration cost was estimated to be equal to 2.3 (US$
million/year). Therefore, the operating cost of processing plant for
open-pit and underground mining is calculated to be 26.17 and 24.7
(US$ million/year), respectively.
It is evident that with increasing open-pit depth and consequently
the removable waste rocks (stripping), stripping costs will be
increased. For the reason, ascendant trend of operating cost per each
tonnage of produced ore in regard to different open-pit mine sizes, is
assessed using whittle 4-X software (Fig. 2). As it is clear in Fig. 2, in
relation to an open-pit mine including 130 Mt of ore, mining operating
cost is US$2.28 per each tonnage of produced ore. This operating cost Figure 2. Mining operating costs of open-pit and underground.
is considered only during production years of open-pit, whereas, during
the three years of overburden removal, operating cost of mine is taken
into account to be equal to US$0.4 per each tonnage of overburden
removal. Therefore, before ore production and during development
stage mining cost will be 13.666 (US$ million/year). Generally, capital
cost of open-pit mining is determined regarding to the mine size. In this
relation, on the basis of an open-pit mine with maximum production
capacity of 130.87 Mt of ore capital cost is considered to be 100.712
(US$ million).
It was planned that a period of 4-years is essential for the
development and accessing to the desired ore deposit in the
underground mining. An estimation of the underground mine capital
cost and mine operating costs, in addition, the direct, underground
operating and maintenance labour requirements and the type, sizes
and number of major pieces of underground equipment has been
done. All estimates are in US dollars, using 2002 prices, and have an
error of estimate of 25%. A 15% contingency has been added to all Figure 3. Net present values of the combined mining scenarios with a
cost estimates. discount rate of 12%.
Capital costs are those costs incurred during the first years of CONCLUSION
construction and prior to mine production. The capital costs include:
124.962 (US$ million) for underground mobile mining equipment, 17.34 Due to the significance of determining the optimal open-pit depth
(US$ million) for miscellaneous mine equipment, 36.453 (US$ million) considering an underground option for Gol-e-Gohar Area 3 ore body,
for shaft development and installations, 33.119 (US$ million) for mine an effective method was used. In this regard, according to the benches
development, 2.2 (US$ million) for mine construction, 2.919 (US$ height of 15-m several scenarios of combined mining of open-pit and
million) for miscellaneous mine operating, 5.23 (US$ million) for staff room and pillar were initially considered. Then, with considering a
and labour. discount rate of 12% the related NPV of each scenario was
determined. After that, during an economical comparison between the
As it shown in Fig. 2, the total operating cost for direct operating scenarios, the most profitable one was selected. In this relation, the
and maintenance supplies and labour for stope and production optimal open-pit depth was assessed to be equal to 285 m, which
development, room and pillar mining has been estimated to be equal to achieves a total NPV of 63 (US$ million).
4.47 (US$/ton, Milled). Therefore, mining cost of the room and pillar
will be 36.9 (US$ million/year). On the basis of the room and pillar REFERENCES
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3 Copyright © 2010 by SME
 SME Annual Meeting
Feb. 28-Mar. 03, 2010, Phoenix, AZ

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