Economic evaluation of materials handling systems in a deep open pit mine
by Kesegofetse Bumo-Motswaiso; Raymond S. Suglo
International Journal of Mining and Mineral Engineering (IJMME), Vol. 13, No. 1, 2022

Abstract: Materials handling constitutes a large portion of the costs of mining operations. Therefore, the system chosen must be cost-effective yet meet the production demands of the mine. In this paper, unit haulage costs, economic risk and sensitivity analyses were conducted to determine the optimal way of handling materials in a deep open pit mine between the traditional truck-shovel haulage system (TSHS) and in-pit crushing and conveying (IPCC) haulage system. The results show that the IPCC haulage system has lower unit costs than the TSHS. The NPV of IPCC system is US$ 15.09 × 10⁹ while that of the TSHS is US$ 14.64 × 10⁹; the DPP of the TSHS and IPCC systems are 2.94 months and 2.13 months, respectively, while the IRR of the TSHS and IPCC systems are 147% and 185% respectively. As the NPVs of both systems are positive, with very short DPPs and high IRRs, the systems are considered to be economically viable. However, the IPCC is considered more economically viable than the TSHS. The NPV of IPCC is less sensitive to variations in the input variables compared to TSHS.

Online publication date: Thu, 14-Jul-2022

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