Geometallurgy

Geometallurgy is the integration of geological, mining, metallurgical, environmental and economic information to maximize the Net Present Value (NPV) of an orebody while minimizing technical and operational risk.

SGS has extensive proven experience with geometallurgy and can:

• Recommend how to domain and sample an orebody
• Test for technical parameters, including those generated by High Definition Mineralogy, for ore characterization
• Distribute test data statistically across your deposit
• Model the planned metallurgical processing flowsheet
• Generate engineering constraints
• Design and optimize your metallurgical infrastructure
• Calculate power and water usage for life-of-mine
• Simulate and model operations
• Forecast production variables and product grade

By combining geological, metallurgical, mineralogical and environmental data, SGS’s geometallurgical methodology first links the mineralogical variability and the textures of the deposit with 3D block model. Then this data is linked to the production, capex and opex requirements and costs. This allows SGS to factor the ore variability into the flowsheet, infrastructure design, production and quality forecasts over life-of-mine. The infrastructure for grinding and downstream plant operations can then be optimized to allow for the variability in the ore. As a consequence, the necessary capital and operating infrastructure is proactively optimized.

SGS has extensive experience with all aspects of geometallurgy, having completed hundreds of projects globally since 1999. SGS geometallurgical solutions will allow you to better manage the risks inherent in mining operations as you have to increasingly deal with more complex, lower grade deposits. By combining sets of data that were originally treated separately, we can help you make better decisions and mitigate your technical risk during every stage of your project, from exploration to production.