Skip Links

USGS - science for a changing world

Open-File Report 01-218

A Simplified Economic Filter for Open-Pit Mining and Heap-Leach Recovery of Copper in the United States

By Keith R. Long and Donald A. Singer

Thumbnail of and link to report PDF (268 kB)Summary

Determining the economic viability of mineral deposits of various sizes and grades is a critical task in all phases of mineral supply, from land-use management to mine development. This study evaluates two simple tools for estimating the economic viability of porphyry copper deposits mined by open-pit, heap-leach methods when only limited information on these deposits is available. These two methods are useful for evaluating deposits that either (1) are undiscovered deposits predicted by a mineral resource assessment, or (2) have been discovered but for which little data has been collected or released. The first tool uses ordinary least-squared regression analysis of cost and operating data from selected deposits to estimate a predictive relationship between mining rate, itself estimated from deposit size, and capital and operating costs. The second method uses cost models developed by the U.S. Bureau of Mines (Camm, 1991) updated using appropriate cost indices. We find that the cost model method works best for estimating capital costs and the empirical model works best for estimating operating costs for mines to be developed in the United States.

First posted July 25, 2001

For additional information, contact:
Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center
U.S. Geological Survey
345 Middlefield Road, MS 901
Menlo Park, CA 94025-3591
http://geomaps.wr.usgs.gov/gmeg/

Part or all of this report is presented in Portable Document Format (PDF). For best results viewing and printing PDF documents, it is recommended that you download the documents to your computer and open them with Adobe Reader. PDF documents opened from your browser may not display or print as intended. Download the latest version of Adobe Reader, free of charge.


Suggested citation:

Long, Keith R., Singer, Donald A., 2001, A Simplified Economic Filter for Open-Pit Mining and Heap-Leach Recovery of Copper in the United States: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 01-218, 21 pp., https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2001/0218/.



Contents

Summary

Introduction

General Considerations

Empirical Analysis of Cost Data

Evaluation of Camm (1991) Cost Model

Application Example

Conclusions

References


Accessibility FOIA Privacy Policies and Notices

Take Pride in America logo USA.gov logo U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://pubsdata.usgs.gov/pubs/of/2001/0218/index.html
Page Contact Information: GS Pubs Web Contact
Page Last Modified: Wednesday, 07-Dec-2016 18:57:31 EST