Is Bigger Better? Building Market Resilience into Process Plant Design

摘要

In an environment of accelerating capital costs, limited capital availability and strongly cyclic metalrnprices, there is a difference between a robust mining and processing operation and one that wouldrnmaximise shareholder returns in an idealised world. A higher cut-off grade policy is likely to improvernoperating margins and may reduce the scale of operations and thus limit capital exposure. This willrnleave some metal in the ground, but it is marginal material which carries the greatest cost and riskrnexposures. Where do we draw the line?