Mining at the Copper Mountain Mine is by conventional open pit methods, using a 15-m bench height. The major components of this mining method are blasthole drilling, blasting, loading, and hauling. Pit walls are designed to geotechnical specifications and vary in slope angle depending upon lithology, alteration, and local ground conditions, with bench face angles of 70 degrees to 73 degrees, and berms of 9 m to 14 m, resulting in inter-ramp pit wall angles that range from 37 degrees to 52 degrees. Ramps are generally 33.5 m wide.
The mining schedule is based on operating 24 h/d, 365 d/a. The mine operations and mine maintenance departments’ shift schedules are planned to continue to be two 12-hr shifts per day, using four alternating crews.
Mining is done on a 24 h/d, 7 d/week basis, and the mining rate varies from 150 kt/d to 200 kt/d, depending on haulage distances, ore:waste ratios, equipment availabilities, and other factors. The current long-term mine plan was generated from pit design phases based on the optimized pit shells and Mineral Reserve block models from the Copper Mountain Mine Main pit, North Pit (Alabama), and the Ingerbelle pit. The mine plan uses the designed pit shells to generate a schedule that maximizes the use of the mining fleet and provides a balance between ore and waste rock movement with a steady supply of mill feed material.
It should be noted that the ultimate pit, the LOM mine production schedule generated by ........
