Simultaneous Stochastic Optimization of Mining Complexes: A paradigm shift, developments and challenges

Speaker

Professor Roussos Dimitrakopoulos

Abstract

A mining complex - mineral value chain refers to the integration of mining and processing operations as well as waste management with multiple mines, multiple metals or minerals, stockpiles, blending options and alternative processing streams to yield sellable products delivered to various customers and/or spot market. Simultaneous stochastic optimization of mining complexes generates a production schedule for the mines and processing streams considered that maximizes the economic value of the enterprise as a whole, while managing uncertainty in material types and grades from mines, and demand/market uncertainty to strategic mine planning. The approach also opens the road towards the self-learning mining complex.

Bio

Roussos Dimitrakopoulos is a professor of the Department of Mining and Materials Engineering at McGill University. He holds a Canada Research Chair (Tier I) in Sustainable Mineral Resource Development and Optimization under Uncertainty, and is director of the COSMO - Stochastic Mine Planning Laboratory (http://cosmo.mcgill.ca/). Roussos holds a PhD from École Polytechnique de Montréal, and an MSc from the University of Alberta in Edmonton. He works on stochastic simulation and optimization as well as artificial intelligence applications in mine planning and production scheduling, along with the simultaneous optimization of industrial mining complexes and mineral value chains under uncertainty. He has published extensively, maintaining large competitive grants from the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada and a long-standing partnership with AngloGold Ashanti, BHP, Agnico Eagle, AngloAmerican/De Beers, IAMGOLD, Kinross Gold, Newmont and Vale (COSMO Consortium) who support this research. He has taught and worked in Australia, North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, South Africa and Japan.

Please note this presentation is online only via webinar.