Defining a strategy to manage the mineral asset

Abstract

This paper assumes that the mineral asset is the principle asset of the mining company, even though it is not recognised as such on the balance sheet. This assumption places an asset management focus on the mineral resource, which in turn allows focus on critical areas of orebody availability, reliability and utilisation, all of which then become critical planning and execution parameters and controls. This approach is a development beyond the mineral resource management (MRM) approach that has been previously advocated, which focuses on integration along the mining value chain, in order to increase the value extracted from the orebody, and to minimise the risk associated with its exploitation. The paper introduces the mineral asset management (MAM) concept, but this is already being applied in two copper operations, so some references are made to these. However, once the process is properly bedded in, these case studies will be the subject of a future paper. This paper also highlights certain specific issues such as flexibility, risk, optimisation and cutoff grade, all of which will also be the subject of future papers aimed at the next level of detail and application.