Planning a mining project’s route to market

A mining development plan needs to connect the available material to a product that a receiver can accept. That means examining the technical evidence, processing options, operating requirements and delivery route together.

Start with the information already available and identify the work needed to assess the proposed product. The resulting plan should distinguish decisions that can be made now from those that depend on further testing or permissions.

Define the potential product

Describe the proposed output precisely enough for a technical reviewer and potential receiver to discuss it. Identify the specification, form and quantity assumptions. Keep aspiration separate from what has been demonstrated.

Ask whether the proposed product fits an identifiable receiving process. When acceptance is uncertain, define the sample work or testing needed to resolve it. Do not design the entire project around an untested assumption that “there will be buyers”.

Establish the technical starting point

Assemble the exploration, sampling and analytical information available. Identify who prepared it and what it can reasonably support. Map the work still needed to assess continuity, processing behaviour and operating options.

JORC distinguishes exploration results, resources and reserves in public reporting. Use those terms only where the evidence and reporting basis support the relevant classification. ^[1]

Evaluate the processing route

Identify the work required to turn the available material into the proposed product. Consider preparation, beneficiation or other processing as questions to investigate, not as guaranteed steps with assumed recovery.

Request estimates and testwork suited to the actual material. Compare alternatives using common assumptions and record the limitations. A lower initial equipment cost may not be the best choice when operating requirements and product acceptance are considered.

Map the operating dependencies

Review access, utilities, labour, equipment support, storage and transport. Identify which dependencies are controlled by the project and which rely on other parties or permissions.

Build the schedule around those dependencies. For mobilisation, commissioning and repeat production, record the prerequisites, responsible party and supporting evidence. Review a proposed date when one of those dependencies changes.

Integrate environmental and social work

The IFC Performance Standards provide a recognised reference for environmental and social risk assessment. Use qualified professionals to identify what is relevant to the project and the work required; a strategy document should not simply claim alignment without assessment. ^[2]

Bring the resulting obligations into the cost and schedule assumptions. Environmental and community-related work belongs in development planning, not only in the investor presentation.

Structure the commercial and capital decisions

Different stages may call for different partners. Early technical work, a controlled production trial and a larger development programme are not necessarily funded or governed in the same way.

Define what each capital commitment is intended to establish or deliver. Set review points that can lead to a change of plan or a decision not to proceed. A strategy should make those choices possible rather than make continued spending feel inevitable.

Prepare the next work package

Summarise the current evidence, the critical unknowns, the next work packages and the conditions for progressing. Name the responsible specialist for each material question.

Use the roadmap to commission the next work package and define what its findings must establish. Technical conclusions, engineering design and legal permissions should be reviewed by the relevant qualified professionals before they become assumptions in the operating plan.