Application of KKT in determining the final destination of mined material in multi-processing mines

Abstract

Determining the final destination of mined materials is counted as one of the most important challenges in mining. Cut-off grade is a criterion specifying the destination of mined materials relying on the commodity price, treatment method recovery, investment and operating costs.The development of mineral processing science makes these methods apply simultaneously in mines, thus, it is needed to specify minerals destination. Regarding environmental and technical considerations and operation costs, the optimum cut–off grades of processing methods are estimated. Minerals destination might be changed due to the differences of investment costs of processing methods. Optimization has been done through the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) theorem in this study. Thus, we tried to innovate a novel algorithm in copper mine. Results indicated that applying KKT theorem can increase the mining NPV by 5% rather than traditional approach of determining cut-off grades. It is also demonstrated that processing recovery and operating and investing costs affect cut-off grades.