Impacts of Different Competent Persons Judgements in Mineral Resources Classification
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17159/Abstract
Uncertainty with regards to estimated grades and tonnages of a mineral deposit demands risk assessment in order to mitigate investment risks, build the confidence of investors and attract the interest of other stakeholders on the success of a project. Classification of uncertainties associated with resource estimation is a major challenge in the mining business because their negative impacts lead to unreliable production schedules and unpredictable cash flows. The various standard codes for public disclosure provide guidelines and recommendations for the classification of Mineral Resources and Reserves but they lack the provision of details, for example, geological and geostatistical information needed for each category of the Mineral Resources and Reserves. Dependency of the parameters used to generate the resource classification categories, based on the assumptions made by the Competent Person (CP) leads to inconsistencies in classification results with different accuracies. This paper investigates the impacts associated with classification results due to different CP judgements, using same drill hole datasets. Different classification parameters generated by different CPs were applied on same copper and gold data to determine inconsistencies in classification results. The varying results from this work underpin the need for the industry to develop a uniform framework that can minimize or avoid potential influence by CP in the classification of Mineral Resources and Reserves.
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Copyright (c) 2024 Solomon Kwabena Ansah Owusu, Kadri Dagdelen
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