{"title":"Strategic Mine Planning: A SWOT Analysis Applied to KOV Open Pit Mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo","authors":"Patrick May Mukonki","volume":131,"journal":"International Journal of Geological and Environmental Engineering","pagesStart":997,"pagesEnd":1004,"ISSN":"1307-6892","URL":"https:\/\/publications.waset.org\/pdf\/10008135","abstract":"
KOV pit (Kamoto Oliveira Virgule) is located 10 km from Kolwezi town, one of the mineral rich town in the Lualaba province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The KOV pit is currently operating under the Katanga Mining Limited (KML), a Glencore-Gecamines (a State Owned Company) join venture. Recently, the mine optimization process provided a life of mine of approximately 10 years withnice pushbacks using the Datamine NPV Scheduler software. In previous KOV pit studies, we recently outlined the impact of the accuracy of the geological information on a long-term mine plan for a big copper mine such as KOV pit. The approach taken, discussed three main scenarios and outlined some weaknesses on the geological information side, and now, in this paper that we are going to develop here, we are going to highlight, as an overview, those weaknesses, strengths and opportunities, in a global SWOT analysis. The approach we are taking here is essentially descriptive in terms of steps taken to optimize KOV pit and, at every step, we categorized the challenges we faced to have a better tradeoff between what we called strengths and what we called weaknesses. The same logic is applied in terms of the opportunities and threats. The SWOT analysis conducted in this paper demonstrates that, despite a general poor ore body definition, and very rude ground water conditions, there is room for improvement for such high grade ore body.<\/p>\r\n","references":"[1]\tZ. E. Elahi, R. Kakaie and A. Yousefi, \u201cA new algorithm for optimum open pit design: Floating cone method III,\u201d Journal of Mining and environment, vol. 2, pp. 118\u2013125, 2011.\r\n[2]\tK. Dagedelen, \u201cOpen pit optimization - strategies for improving economics of mining projects through mine planning,\u201d Proceedings of the 17th International Mining Congress and Exhibition of Turkey - IMCET 2001. \r\n[3]\tK. Dagedelen, \u201cMine production scheduling optimization \u2018the state of the art\u2019,\u201d Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration, Littleton, Colorado.\r\n[4]\tW. Hustrulid and M. Kuchta: Open pit Mine planning and design.vol.1-Fundamentals. 3rdEd. Balkema, Rotterdam\u2212Brookfield.1998.\r\n[5]\tB. Jayanta: Principles of Mine planning.2ndEd. Allied Publishers, New Delhi, India.2007.\r\n[6]\tC. R. Ian: Mining Economics and Strategy.1st Ed. Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration, Littleton, Colorado.1998.\r\n[7]\tP. C. Juan: Management of Mineral resources-Creating Value in the Mining Business Applications. Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration, Littleton, Colorado.2002.\r\n[8]\tGlencore International AG, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves statement for Kamoto Copper Company. Report no.12614771-11884-3.Golder Associates, 2013. \r\n[9]\tJ. M. Rendu: An Introduction to Cut-Off Grade Estimation. 1st Ed. Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration, Littleton, Colorado.2008.\r\n[10]\tP. M. Mukonki and K. A. Muhota: \u201cStrategic Mine Planning approach for determination of operational pushbacks using Datamine NPV Scheduler: case study of the Mashamba East open pit mine, Democratic Republic of Congo. \u201cInternational Journal of innovation and scientific Research,Vol.30 NO.2.2017, pp.269-279.\r\n[11]\tP. M. Mukonki and K. A. Muhota: \u201cEstablishment of a mathematical relationship to correlate fleet size with equipment availability in open pit mine, using curve \u2013fitting techniques: A case study of the Mashamba copper deposit, Democratic Republic of Congo. \u201cInternational Journal of innovation and scientific Research, Vol.30 NO.2.2017, pp.234-241.\r\n[12]\tP. M. Mukonki, K. A. Muhota and F. B. Bokwala, \u201cStrategic Mine planning applied to Large scale open pit mines by comparing the impact of three different bloc models of the same deposit, on the long term mine plan\u201d Proceedings of the 7th International conference on science, Technology, Engineering and Management, Dubai-ICSTEM 2017. \r\n[13]\tCalls&Nicholas, internal report, Katanga mining limited, august, 2014.","publisher":"World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology","index":"Open Science Index 131, 2017"}