Conceptual Study of The Techno-Economic Effects of Deviated versus Straight Drilling in Mining Operations – PHASE II: A Comprehensive Size and Cost Estimation Model

Conventional hard rock mining operations consists of following four steps; drilling, blasting, loading and hauling. In these steps, drilling and blasting is where the breakage of the in-situ, hard-rock formation is achieved. As being the first step of this conventional cycle, drilling plays a prominent role in the success of the other steps. Therefore, hard rock mining companies are highly interested in ensuring the precision of their drilling operations before they commence blasting. Also, haulage step usually ends in a mineral processing (also referred as milling) stage where the liberation of the entrapped valuable mineral is achieved by crushing. Therefore, it would be reasonable to conclude that ensuring high precision rock fragmentation in the pit would be deemed as highly substantial and has a very high impact on the final product. When improved, the impact of drillhole precision usually manifests itself as cost and time savings. Present study aims to develop a comprehensive financial and physical model that identifies the impact of the contributing factors in implementation of high precision drilling in a mine-to-mill scale.

Faculty Supervisor:

Seyed Ali Ghoreishi-Madiseh

Student:

Partner:

Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Mining

University:

The University of British Columbia

Program: