Abstract
Human-enhanced global warming is driving a shift towards low-carbon energy with increasing metal demand. At the same time, the minerals sector faces ever greater scrutiny around responsible resource extraction. The industry must respond to this situation by acknowledging the need for change and improving business practices across the value chain through innovation. Historically, geologists, mining engineers, and metallurgists would work in closer collaboration, but specialization has led to a disconnect between exploration, mining, and environmental sciences and engineering. A bridging discipline known as orebody knowledge (or geometallurgy) has sprung up to reintegrate the functions of specialist teams and make optimal use of complex data sets. In this presentation, we will provide workflows and case studies to illustrate the value of advanced analytics applied to geological and geochemical data. For example, the mineralogical composition of mined materials strongly affects metallurgical performance, including comminution, recovery, and concentrate quality, but also environmental issues such as metal leaching and acid-rock drainage. While detailed mineralogical data is often limited to a small number of samples, multi-element geochemical data from thousands of drill-hole intervals can be used to generate proxies for mineralogical composition. This information is vital in forecasting and simulating downstream processes including mining, milling, recovery, waste management, and closure planning - providing critical insight for major investment decisions.