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MineSight® Foregroundin the

Special Edition July 2002

MineSight® Operations Leading the Way

in Ore Control

For users familiar with the software tool MineSight® 3-D, it is well known as a powerful 3-D graphics system specifically designed for manipulating data for geological and mining projects.

MineSight® Operations is a new state-of-the-art ore control system utilizing MineSight® 3-D as a framework and includes additional programs to manage production blasthole data, build models, and generate reports. Existing users of MINTEC, inc.’s ore control system will be impressed by the usability enhancements in this new system. acQuire™, an industry standard data management system, when linked to MineSight®, greatly improves data handling and integrity. Existing MineSight® users need only purchase acQuire™, as the

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(MineSight® 3-D, the Next Generation in Mine Planning Software continued from page 2)

and “From and To” values. A revised Strip tab provides icons to display strips, histograms, and wriggle traces, down hole ticks, dipmeters/rose diagrams. Model views now include secondary item hatching, improved labeling, and accommodation of models larger than 2 GB. Improvements to the Blast Pattern Editor allow easier editing of layouts. MineSight® Compass™ is the menu interface to the procedure system. Some of the new features here are user specified fonts, and command line processing of MineSight® procedures.

As a result of suggestions and requests from clients in the past year, the new release of MineSight® 3-D includes many improvements to the existing CAD tools and the addition of numerous new features. New CAD tools added to MineSight® 3-D include a function to Clip surfaces and solids using one or more polylines and/or pit surfaces, a surface explode function, a function to query for the center of mass or create a point at the center of mass, offset polyline, and an improved Drape tool (which is much faster now).

Existing tool improvements for MineSight® 3-D include a simplified Intersect Solid tool, a completely redesigned Intersect Surfaces Tool, surface repair tools (hole patching), the ability to detect and automatically delete duplicate faces in surfaces/solids, Polyline Clip tool with a more convenient interface and an enhanced functionality, enhanced extrude/expand tool with two new advanced options, and an improved default behavior for the ramp editor.

Future EnhancementsIn MineSight® 3-D, you will see the

ability to edit acQuire™ data directly in MineSight® 3-D. This change is in beta testing at this time. Future enhancements on which we’re currently hard at work include: adding the ability to create fence diagrams, creating drive diagrams for underground operations, making even more modifications to the Triangulator, improving the way information is stored to the audit file, adding more enhancements to the pit/extruder tools, adding an ‘autoslicer’ (currently in Beta testing and similar to the old ‘autominer’ function in M650IP), and improving the ‘string thin’ function.

Some of the enhancements we are planning to do in the future include: additional labeling enhancements, adding the logic for creating partials and finding percents from polylines, provide a scripting interface to drillholes for user calculations, better management of materials, improved polygon hatching, and attributed nodes on polylines.

MineSight® Foregroundin the

Special Edition July 2002

be summarized in a number of ways, and various reports can be generated too, such as by period, material, or bench.

MineSight® 3-D is used to graphically display all required information in 3-D cuts. As planned mining progresses, feedback is provided in terms of data critical to the ore control process including block models showing grade and rock type information in displays that are color coded, hatched, and labeled with constraining limits such as design pits; geological boundaries; and tonnes, volume, and grade quality of material moved during the planning session.

Perhaps the biggest advantage offered by MineSight® Operations is that raw data (blasthole information), as well as geometry, and reserves data generated during a ore control planning session, are stored in third party ODBC compliant databases. The advantages of storing the information in an attributed geometry database include:

v an open and exposed data model which allows access for queries, reports, and summaries by third party tools;

v easy importing and exporting of external data; andv ensured integrity of data.

In summary, MineSight® Operations will:v improve the reliability of all phases of ore control; v improve the integrity of the blasthole data including

assays, locations, and check samples;v improve the efficiency of sending material to the

correct destination;v provide better data for reconciliation calculations;v provide better estimates of material in place;v automate the data handling to reduce manpower

required; andv reduce costs by eliminating the need for third party GIS and CAD

programs.The bottom line—MineSight® Operations

will quickly pay back your investment. MineSight® Operations is a cutting edge addition to the MineSight® suite of programs. This new component helps to streamline the typical ore control process and store both raw blasthole data, along with essential cut attribute information, and whatever the user requires to store with the cut in an ODBC database. In addition, users can access information written to these databases with such standard tools as Microsoft Access™ or Seagate Crystal Reports™ for summary reports or to perform other calculations.

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(MineSight® Operations Leading the Way in Ore Control continued from page 3) rest of the MineSight® Operations functionality is included with the standard full version of MineSight®. Non-MineSight® users will be able to purchase a bundled MineSight® Operations package, which will include acQuire™ and the required portions of MineSight® to use MineSight® Operations. Both groups of users will be able to purchase implementation assistance to provide a seamless migration from their existing ore control system.

The main task required of an ore control engineer is the generation of daily/weekly dig plans and ore control cuts. The high variability and complexity of many projects makes this task repetitive and interactive, requiring a flexible and highly interactive tool. MineSight® Operations is such a tool.

The approach taken in MineSight® Operations is an extension of the technique used by MINTEC in previous versions of their ore control software. The starting point is the management of raw data required in the system, such as planned and actual locations of blastholes, grades associated with each blasthole, as well as additional information provided that may be of relevance (drill penetration/hardness information). Much of this data can be automatically loaded into the acQuire™ database with little or no manual intervention, thus improving data reliability and speeding up the planning process.

Block models of grade distribution are then automatically built using the most recently loaded blasthole data. A typical ore control process consists of defining a set of mining shapes or cuts, in either 2-D or 3-D, and calculating reserves on each cut. The reserves are then accumulated by period, material, or some other reporting requirement. Cuts can be clipped against other cuts (polygons or solids) on the fly. After reserves are calculated, modifications can be made to the cut geometry or cut attributes. Reserves may

MineSight® Foreground

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v Project NPV (net present value) readily available for comparing different schedule scenarios.

v Sorts phases of each period based on updated phase NPV. Higher NPV values have higher priorities to be mined fi rst. Ordering phases according to higher phase NPV values ensures general mining sequence is optimizing project NPV. Together with the defi ning number of phases working in a period, MineSight® Strategic Planner will mine “ore” from phases with highest NPV and strip waste in next phases with higher NPV values, reducing the risk of stripping from far away places.v Blend up to 3 quality items and report up to 20 grade items.v Defi nition of cutoff grades by period or by phase by period makes cutoff grade optimization possible for practical schedules.v Up to 2,000 precedence constraints provide control in considering operating constraints or in scheduling according to judgement.v Ability to schedule use of destinations and truck and shovel hours. Ability to control vertical advances of benches within a phase, the mining rate of phases, and the dumping rate of material destinations.v Schedule results can be easily exported into Microsoft® Excel spreadsheets or a Microsoft® Access database. Schedule charts are easily printed. Customized reports can be generated using third party software which stores schedule outputs in database fi les.

Special Edition July 2002

MineSight® Foregroundin the

Long-range scheduling is critical to project evaluations and strategic planning for mining operations. MineSight® Strategic Planner is the next generation in long-range scheduling, providing solutions to practical scheduling challenges.

MineSight® Strategic Planner takes in pushback reserves and explicitly examines, one period at a time, all combinations of mining patterns for feasible mining layouts. Mining layouts are then selected that meet current period targets and satisfy current period operating constraints. When a feasible mining layout is found, the use of material destinations (crushers, plants, stockpiles, leach pads, or dumps) and the use of trucks and shovels are simulated. If the removal of the “mined” materials is successful, e.g., the capacities of destinations and the available hours of trucks and shovels did not run out, the selected feasible mining layout becomes a feasible solution. The cost and revenues

associated with this solution are computed and recorded.

At the end of a period solution examination, all feasible solutions are compared. An optimum solution is chosen based on the period objective. Mining is carried out based on the optimum solution. The status of reserves, capacities of material destinations, and available hours of trucks and shovels are updated.

Advantages of MineSight® Strategic Plannerv Optimized schedule based on mixed integer programming principle. Bottom period benches mined based on linear programming, non-period-bottom benches mined by explicit enumeration. Optimum solution based on com- prehensive schedule criteria, considering not only tons and grades, but also schedule economics as well as use of material destinations, and truck and shovel hours.

MineSight® Strategic Planner, the Tool for Long-range Scheduling

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