Technical-economic evaluation of low-grade resources and its application for gold mines

A technical and economic evaluation model for low-grade resources in Jiaojia Gold Mine was built up based on the break-even theory.In different production stages,the corresponding follow-up cost was calculated,based on which the low grade resources were evaluated and classified.Differential grades were calculated to determine whether it is worthy to recovery them.The three-dimensional deposit model in combination with Supac software was adopted to estimate and evaluate low-grade mineralized deposits in Jiaojia Gold Mine.Given the gold price of RMB $180 g-1,the application of differential grade can bring the mine additional 2.73 t gold metals,as well as RMB $7 500 million profits.