As mining engineers, we tend to only focus on the technical side of things when faced with a challenge, without really considering the effect of the solution on the bottom line. This is not good practice, and can lead to huge disappointment when the economics of the solution is not strongly considered. As part of RPMGlobal's Professional Development Programme, and in partnership with the School of Rock, the Mining Economics course is presented in Online format for your conven

I tend to get confused when it comes to expressing ramp gradients in a ratio format vs percentage format. Below is a quick and easy reminder that you can use. The ramp gradient is exactly the same for both examples.

Are you 100% confident that your Excel calculations are correct in determining fleet numbers? Are your roads accurately set-up in terms of stop signs, single carriage areas, steep gradients, single-bay dumps? What happens when you have congestion in your pit, how does Excel cater for that? With the HAULSIM simulations you can set up your site accurately to generate realistic results in terms of fleet numbers. The simulations allow you to run a host of possible scenarios, to e

Benitoite is an extremely rare mineral that is best known for being the official state gemstone of California. It is a barium titanium silicate mineral, usually blue in color, that is found in rocks that have been altered by hydrothermal metamorphism. Its chemical composition is BaTi(Si3O9). Benitoite’s identification and original description was based upon specimens found in the headwaters of the San Benito River, in San Benito County, California, from which it received its

Know the feeling... when you're losing precious time because of fighting the software instead of running iterations and scenarios... You will never have confidence in your schedule if you do not have 2 or 3 scenarios to test the flex of your system. Your superiors want a number of options, not just one answer. RPMGlobal's XPAC SOLUTIONS products (OPMS & SMS) allows you to do just that - run scenarios instead of suffering in silence. With almost a decade of open pit scheduling

The Kibali gold mine is located in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), approximately 220 kilometres east of the capital of the Haut Uele province, Isiro, 150 kilometres west of the Ugandan border town of Arua and 1,800 kilometres from the Kenyan port of Mombasa. The mine is owned by Kibali Goldmines SA (Kibali) which is a joint venture company effectively owned 45% by each of Barrick and AngloGold Ashanti, and 10% by Société Miniére de Kilo-Moto (SOKIMO).

How sure are you that your mine designs have the minimum number of switchbacks? Have you tested the impact of having one switchback less, how that reduces your strip ratio and down-the-line costs, not to mention the health & safety of your employees...? What about your benches & stacks, do they honour the geotechnical slope angles to prevent slope failure...? Your ramp systems on your interim high-walls - do they tie up with your final design and serve as dual access for that

This YouTube clip from the Australian Centre for Geomechanics is a training video for underground metalliferous mine workers. The aim is to provide workers with the critical knowledge on drilling and blasting and to aid appreciation of the importance of these mining processes and their related hazards.

The mining industry is notorious for its volatile nature as commodity prices fluctuate. History shows that it's the companies that can adjust to the market changes the quickest that lead the pack. Mining on a 5-year-old mine design that was based on a Whittle shell all those years ago can mean you're either leaving value in the ground, or more detrimental, you're now mining in areas where profitability is going South... With almost a decade of Whittle open pit optimisation ex

Another great YouTube clip from the guys at Atlas Copco illustrating the principles of Block Caving. Note how it differs from Sub Level Caving in that the whole block caves, whereas with SLC the caving is done level by level. Any comments from the experts most welcome!