Operational Sustainability in the Mining Industry by Hassan Qudrat-Ullah & Pramela Nair Panthallor

Author:Hassan Qudrat-Ullah & Pramela Nair Panthallor
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811590276
Publisher: Springer Singapore

3.3.2 Costs in Mining Operations

Profit in a mining operation over a period can be increased by the flow of high-grade material to the processing plant and this is where the cut-off grade is an important factor (Asad & Topal, 2011). Mining costs depend on various factors like ore processing techniques, equipment selection, drilling methods, blasting methods, and haulage. Ore processing technique involves choosing the option of processing the ore on-site, shipping the concentrated ore directly to the market, or choosing other off-site processing plants of the company (Miguel, 1996).

Grain size is an important factor in recovery because small and fine grains of minerals are difficult or impossible to recover in the processing plant (McIlroy, 1999). If the minerals are hard, then it can also result in being uneconomical because hardness will increase the grinding cost. It is never economically practical to extract all available ore from the mine. The cost factor plays an important role in mine recovery and processing recovery because it is overly expensive to mine and process the last remaining tonnes of ore from the mines. It is profitable to recover most of the mineral at less cost than to recover all of it at an extremely high cost (McIlroy, 1999). The supply process of minerals has five areas of costs as illustrated in Fig. 3.3 (McIlroy, 1999).

Fig. 3.3Areas of costs in supply process of minerals

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