Mine planning and design
We work with clients from project commencement to develop mine plans that optimise pit design and maximise production.
Supporting our site-based engineers are Estimating and Engineering teams situated in our Brisbane and Perth offices. These teams strategically evaluate the needs of operations and clients to determine the best outcomes for the project. With many years of experience in mine planning and operations in both hard rock and coal mining, these teams provide expertise in:
- Mine design
- Mine scheduling
- Survey control
- Machine guidance support
- Mine feasibility studies
The technical support provided to our mine sites includes short-, medium- and long-term mine planning. Short-term planning is usually completed on site by the site mining engineers. In conjunction with the Base Cost Estimate Mine Plan, consideration is given to the level of mine planning required on site based on:
- Quantities
- Contract requirements
- Geology of deposit
- Site planning requirements
Medium-to long-term planning is generally completed by the Estimating and Engineering teams. All operations have different needs, and this is taken into account in the allocation of resources.
To assist with mine planning and design, we use external professional software packages, including Vulcan, XPAC, Spry and Deswik. In addition, we also use haulage optimiser software, such as our in-house program HaulGen, which has been developed to interface with XPAC and Vulcan.
These programs are used to model different options for waste and coal haulage for varying mine schedules. The haulage optimisers provide a visual display of all of the haul profiles generated from the schedule.