Cut-Off Grade Determination of Iron Ore Mines Considering Sustainable Development Costs

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 Department of Mining Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of Mining Engineering / Amirkabir University of Technology

3 Mine exploitation, Mining engineering, Amirkabir university of technology, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Considering the indicators of sustainable development in the calculation of cutoff grade leads to the sustainable mine design and is the biggest opportunity to reduce the adverse effects of mining activities. Until recently, only economic indicators were considered in the calculation of the cutoff grade. In recent studies, environmental indicators have also been implicated, but research that considers social factors has not been reported. Therefore, in the present study, a new model developed to calculate the cutoff grade, which includes all three criteria of sustainable development. To carry out the study, the costs related to sustainable development were entered into the break-even cutoff grade formula and the proposed model was validated with the information related to Choghart Iron Ore Mine. The results show that the sustained development costs included in the estimation of the Choghart Mine account for only 5% of the total costs, and the results of the sensitivity analysis show that these costs have the least impact on the determination of cutoff grade. The findings also show that the impact of sustainable development costs in Choghart Mine has increased the percentage of the cutoff grade by 5.5% and may not have much effect on the results. Therefore, the outcomes indicate that by using this method, a big change has not been achieved in the percentage of the cutoff grade. Also, some of the environmental and social problems of the project, taking into account the sustainable development costs, and spending the lowest percentage of the cost will be decreased.

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Amirkabir Journal of Civil Engineering
Volume 56, Issue 8
November 2024
Pages 1-1

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