ABSTRACT
The mining industry has developed several strategies to optimize ore extraction along past decades. Ore is related to the mine incomes, thus research regarding mine planning focus on ore extraction. However, to mine ore blocks it is necessary to move large volumes of waste material. It is estimated that waste haulage and disposal might represent more than 50% of operational costs, which highlights the importance of integrating waste management in mine planning. Definition of waste dumps can be a complex and difficult task as it relies on several technical and environmental aspects. This paper proposes a new approach for waste disposal called a Multi Stage Dumping Sequence (MSDS), which allocates temporary waste dumps along the way to final dump destination. Although this method demands material re-handling, if well planned, it provides additional time to design and license final waste dump site, and yet, resulting increases in NPV by reducing haulage distances.
