Simultaneous multi-sector block cave mine production scheduling considering operational uncertainties

ABSTRACT

The main objective of this study is to provide a practical and near-optimal mine production schedule for block caving operations considering operational uncertainty. The problem is defined in the context of goal programming optimization to meet the operational objectives, including tonnage and grade as daily production targets. The considered operational constraints include drawpoints and ore pass design, draw rate, mine production, and transportation capacities in different operational levels, tonnage and grade constraints, and mine production targets in the presence of several mining sectors. The developed model is verified and validated using historical operational data obtained from an actual block caving operation. The practicality and flexibility of the framework are examined through three different operational scenarios and compared with the real block caving operation mine plans and historical production data.

KEYWORDS:

• Uncertainty
• production scheduling
• operating delays
• debottlenecking
• block caving
• Monte-Carlo simulation
• non-linear goal programming
• short-term mine planning

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the support of grant ANID-CONICYT PIA AFB180004 from the National Agency for Research and Development of Chile. We also thank Compute Canada (www.computecanada.ca) and WestGrid (www.westgrid.ca) for continued support through extensive access to Compute Canada HPC grid.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge the support of grant ANID-CONICYT PIA AFB180004 from the National Agency for Research and Development of Chile.