MINED ORE ANALYSIS AND CONTROL OF RELATED MINING AND EXTRACTION PROCESSES

摘要

In a surface mining operation, real-time ore composition analysis can be usedto directongoing mining processes, and in blending ore feed streams to achieve ablended dryore stream that meets operational specifications for downstream processing.Further, theanalysis data can be used to control downstream processing steps, for exampleindetermining appropriate volumes and temperature of water and chemicals addedto theore to form a suitable slurry composition for efficient operation of adownstreamhydrocarbon extraction process, or to optimize specific processing steps inthe extractionof hydrocarbons from oil sands ore, based on the analysis data. The oreanalysis datacan also be used to update a mine or reservoir map. Ore analysis can beaccomplishedby infrared reflectance analysis using NIR probes installed on ore transportorprocessing equipment that come into direct contact with the ore to beanalyzed.