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OPTIMIZATION SEMINAR
by Brian Hall and Daniel Kahler from AMC Consultants
Brian Hall and Daniel Kahler, principal mining engineers based in AMCs Brisbane office in Australia,
will be attending the Perumin conference in Arequipa in late September 2015 (together with five other
senior AMC consultants). On 5 October, they will present a half-day seminar on Cut-off Grades and
Mine Strategy Optimization in Lima. A flyer describing the seminar is attached. It is based largely on
Brian Halls authoritative book, Cut-Off Grades and Optimising the Strategic Mine Plan, which was
recently published by The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (The AusIMM).
Presenters:
Brian Hall has more than 40 years of experience in the industry. His background expertise is in all aspects of
planning for underground metalliferous mining, including detailed mine designs, technical assessments, feasibility
studies and strategic planning.
Over the last 15 years Brian has been working at the cutting edge of mine strategy optimization,
taking the principles developed by Ken Lane and applying them in practical real-world scenarios
to provide significant increases in value for AMCs clients. His expertise in mine strategy
optimization has been developed in a variety of projects at underground, open-pit, and mineral
sands operations, both in Australia and overseas. The optimization evaluations span the whole
value chain, from geological models, and even the gleams in the geologists eye, to delivery of
final product to the customer. He has developed a number of tools that allow sound theoretical
principles to be applied to complex real-world situations. Brians experience includes Mt Lyell,
Goldfields of South Africa, Mt Isa Mines (where he was Underground Manager, Planning
Manager, and Chief Mining Engineer), and more than 20 years as an AMC consultant working
on a wide variety of projects in a number of countries. Brian holds degrees in Mining Engineering and Commerce
from the University of Queensland. He has presented this seminar both publicly and in-house for clients over many
years and has also prepared and presented courses in mining and associated topics at undergraduate and
graduate level at a number of universities in Australia and overseas.
Daniel Kahler has almost 20 years of experience in a variety of underground mines, including
block caves, sub-level open stoping, hand-held stoping, and narrow-vein deposits. His commodity
experience includes copper, silver, lead, zinc, gold, and high-grade gold-in-quartz for jewellery
stone. Daniel has worked in both operational and technical roles, and has managed or played a
lead role in a number of studies ranging from scoping to detailed engineering, including study
reviews and technical reports using compulsory national reporting standards (for example, NI 43-
101 and JORC).
Daniel wrote MCost, AMCs first-principles cost estimation software for underground mining.
Seminar details:
Getting your cut-off grade strategy right can add more value than any other business improvement
initiative, often increasing the value of an operation by in excess of 30%. Results of strategy optimization
studies over many years continue to demonstrate that industry conventional wisdom is unwise, destroying
significant stakeholder value.
But what does getting the cut-off strategy right mean? Is your companys mining strategy:
Maximizing value, or simply ensuring a tonne of ore pays its way?
Accounting for your geology and the capacity of the mine, mill and market?
Recognizing changes over time and across the operation?
Aligned with the companys goals? (Of course! you say, but is it really?!)
Everyone in the mining industry works with cut-off grade either knowingly or unknowingly but most
managers and engineers dont know how critical it is to the companys success. The goals implicit in the
cut-off derivation are the companys goals, regardless of what the chairman might tell the shareholders at
the annual meeting! Do you know how to align the cut-off policy (and other operating policies) with your
company's stated goals?
This half-day seminar addresses these questions and more. Designed to remove the mystique surrounding
cut-off grades, the seminar deals with the Why, When and How of cut-off grade and production strategy
optimization. After an initial focus on cut-off, since it is perhaps the least-understood driver of corporate
value, the seminar also covers the interrelationships between this and other key value-driving decision
parameters, such as mining methods, mining and treatment rates, and mining sequences, both within a
single operation, and across all the operations of the company combined. It considers the effects of
multiple corporate goals, and the trade-offs between upside rewards and downside risks if the assumptions
underlying the strategic plan turn out to be wrong.
The seminar provides important insights into what really generates value in mining operations, and is
suited to everyone in the industry with an interest in maximizing value, from the CEO to the junior mining
engineer and geologist, as well as industry investors and analysts.
By way of an introduction to Brian Halls book, the following are extracts from the foreword:
www.amcconsultants.com