Capital investment appraisal for advanced mining technology : case studies in GPS and information based surface mining technology
Canadian, American and Australian mining industries are currently faced with the requirement to streamline their operations in light of new economic realities. Automation has been seen as a key step toward the survival and competitiveness of these industries. Unfortunately, technology providers s...
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| Format: | Others |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2009
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/2429/9033 |
| Summary: | Canadian, American and Australian mining industries are currently faced with the
requirement to streamline their operations in light of new economic realities. Automation has
been seen as a key step toward the survival and competitiveness of these industries.
Unfortunately, technology providers seldom have the expertise or resources to properly
transfer technology from the development stage to the productive stage. Mining companies,
the potential customers of technology providers are similarly inexperienced at appraising and
implementing these new technologies. The manufacturing industry is well experienced in
appraising (referred most commonly in manufacturing as justifying) and implementing new
technology and has developed numerous capital investment appraisal (CIA) methods that can
more accurately appraise new technology. These techniques offer the potential to be adapted
to suit the mining industry.
The primary objective of this thesis is to investigate the usefulness of various decisionmaking
tools in the CIA of advanced technologies for the mining industry. This research
discusses the current technological situation in the mining industry to show the requirement
for new capital appraisal techniques. The current evaluation methods are analyzed and their
weaknesses are identified. The classification schemes and CIA methods derived from the
manufacturing industry are adapted to mining. Analytical examples are provided in terms of
hypothetical situations and two case studies at an open pit copper mine in British Columbia
are described. The first case study reveals the limitations of current CIA methods when
applied to advanced technology and applies alternative CIA techniques whose applicability is
rated by the decision-maker at the mine as being "very useful". The second case study uses
object based simulation as a CIA tool for a blending project by estimating parameters within
the project that were previously only subjective opinion. === Applied Science, Faculty of === Mining Engineering, Keevil Institute of === Graduate |
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