The mining industry faces challenges and strategic decisions every day, to obtain optimal and profitable results. Given these needs, DeepMine is an innovative tool that facilitates and optimizes planning in open-pit mines.
This software, developed by GEM, a leading global mining consultancy, represents a huge advance over any other tool available on the market. “We have spent the last few years developing a system that improves the quality of mineral extraction, optimization of resources, planning and maximization of profits in mines,” says the General Manager of GEM and creator of DeepMine, Juan Ignacio Guzmán.
And it is that the advanced calculation and visualization engine, together with the number of options and parameters provided by this system, allows a rapid technical-economic evaluation of multiple scenarios or options, generating flexible and robust mining plans in the face of the materialization of economic uncertainties.
DeepMine is based on approximate dynamic programming, which explores multiple development possibilities, to create the best result for each possible mining configuration. This is a novel approach, maximizing the value of the operation by taking into account the time value of money and existing opportunity costs while ensuring the operational viability of the mine.
“It is an extremely practical tool, especially for the first stages of project development,” says Juan Ignacio Guzmán, who gives us an example of “a greenfield project that is not yet in operation, and in which some drilling has been carried out, and Here, DeepMine quickly determines the potential size of the pit, the order or sequence of mining the pit, a mining plan, the eventual economic value of the project, it’s level of profitability, and the sensitivity of the project value to variables. critical aspects of the mining sector: the price of the commodity of interest, costs, processing capacities, environmental restrictions, processing technologies, among others”.
In line with the above, something extremely remarkable about this system is that the planning of the exploitation sequence is determined automatically, being much more reliable, because it no longer depends on the experience or “hand” of the planner. DeepMine does not assume that nested Lerch-Grossman pits are a feasible sequence in practice. It also does not require designed operational phases since the software automatically generates operable phases. These can be used as a strong guide to mine design, making the process easier and avoiding early commitments that could erode the value of the operation. The DeepMine algorithm thus takes care of operational feasibility, thus bringing the strategy back to center stage.
For more information:
Jean Massenez, Business Development Manager at GEM / jmassenez@gem-mc.com
Press:
Isabella Bassi, Head of Communications at GEM / ibassi@gem-mc.com
