THE RATIONALE OF COMBINING THE EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION WORKS ON A GOLD DEPOSIT
Keywords:
gold, content, ore, exploitation, exploration, capital investment, combination in time, the bringing factors.Abstract
One of the gold deposits in the South of Armenia is represented by very thin, less often thin, seven steep ore bodies. The ores and host rocks are sufficiently strong and stable, with the exception of contacts and cores where there is significant fracturing.
It is obvious that the steep fall of ore bodies with exits to the surface, causes a combined open-underground method of development. It is also obvious that the method of exploration by inclined wells for vein steep-falling ore bodies is poorly informative, since the discrete (point) type of expected results is not able to characterize the complete picture of mineralization variability.
For the described geological conditions, with the aim of obtaining a representative (reliable) data according to the definition of qualitative and quantitative indicators of the variability of the mineralization along strike and dip, new, unconventional approaches for different ways of development are necessary. For open development, piloc production was used, which revealed a discrepancy between the qualitative and quantitative indicators of ore reserves in the subsoil according to the operational and previously conducted preliminary exploration. The detailed exploration of the deep part of the ore body also requires a special approach for the same purpose - the definition of qualitative and quantitative reliable indicators of mineralization variability in strike and fall.
On the example of the field under consideration, it is shown that it is advisable to combine the additional geological exploration and operational work in time. As the criterion of optimality, the reduced costs for the extraction of 1 ton of ore, taking into account the time factor, were chosen. On the example of mining the ore body number 16, it was proved that the combination of work leads to a reduction in absolute capital investments at the mine in the amount of $ 1.45 million and the specific reduced production costs in the amount of $ 3.35 per 1 ton of mined oil or 6 $ 36 per 1 ton of ore in the depths.
