The value of adaptive mineral processing based on spatially varying ore fabric parameters

We show that adapting the mineral processing to the local ore fabric (mineralogy and microstructure) can substantially improve the profitability of the mine, however, only a proper geomathematical methodology using conditional expectations of profits rather than direct measurements can avoid losses. Based on geometallurgical exploration data and processing models potential gain and actual gain of this approach can be quantified before exploitation commences. Rules for optimal decisions, estimators for the gain of this approach from exploration data, and a method to compute the optimal geometallurgical sampling density are presented.