Integrated Approach to Reserve Estimation and Optimal Open Pit Design for Hydrothermal Gold Deposit

This paper presents an integrated approach to reserve estimation and optimal open pit design for hydrothermal gold deposits. The study combines a deep understanding of the deposit's geological characteristics with techniques for reserve estimation and open-pit design principles. The entire mine design process is accurately examined, from integrating exploration data to establishing a well-defined final pit configuration. The study’s principal objective is to evaluate economic factors, assess ore reserves, and formulate an optimized open pit design tailored to the deposit's unique attributes. This has been achieved through cutting-edge software tools viz the Surpac-based block modelling software and the Whittle software to attain an optimized pit shell, and then reintegrate the optimized design into Surpac for pit construction. Geostatistical techniques such as Kriging for reserve estimation and block modelling have been executed using Surpac, while Whittle software has been utilized to generate the pit outline. Parameters like sampling intervals, top-cut values, proportional effects, and mixed distributions are thoroughly examined to establish robust experimental variograms. The final pit design features exhibits an average stripping ratio of 4:1 and a gold reserve of 861,824,000 tonnes, with a Net Present Value (NPV) of $1,017,869,140 at a 10% discount rate. In conclusion, the paper elucidates the open pit design process for hydrothermal gold deposits, underscoring the significance of integrating geostatistical methodologies and industry-standard software tools to optimize mine design.