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Mineral resources classifications based on grade confidence criteria are becoming increasingly common in the mining industry. These criteria aim to measure the confidence level of the expected grade on panels of volumes equivalent to production volumes relevant for medium and long-term planning. Thus, monthly or quarterly production panels that show a high probability (usually 90% or more) of having a grade within a certain variability (usually ±15%) of the expected panel grade are typically used to support the Measured Resources category. Similar metrics evaluated over yearly panels are used to inform the Inferred Resources category. The confidence metrics are usually obtained from the post-processing of geostatistical simulations.
As Mineral Resources Classification occurs before mine planning and scheduling, the final shape of the production volumes is unknown. Consequently, the panels are assumed to be rectangular parallelepipeds of uniform size. This practice can result in the following inconvenient outcomes:
To address these issues, the authors propose:
As demonstrated in a case study from a porphyry deposit, this strategy results in smoother boundaries between Mineral Resource categories that honour the production targets and different geological and grade confidence levels within the domains present in the panels.
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