# Assessing of Losses and Dilution Impact on the Cost Chain: Case Study of Gold Ore Deposits
## 1 Introduction
### Quality Control: Losses, Dilution, Average Grade of the Valuable Component
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**Component** & **Characteristics** \\ \hline Fragmentation & Fragmentation can be defined as the size distribution of rock fragments. The fragmentation is dependent on factors such as rock properties, charge patterns, specific drill spacing, gas explosion pressure and properties of explosives. \\ Fragmentation & Blasting is used to produce rock fragments that are manageable. It is important to easy clean them, handle, load, or crush. Those processes are used to minimize total production cost per ton blasted. The process of ore movement is realized by means of face cleaning, blasting, loading, and scraping. In some cases, realization of those processes leads to ore loss. Ore losses can be defined as any unrecoverable economic ore, which is left inside the stope, or which is not recovered, using mineral processing system. \\ Ore loss & This is broken ore, which was called by mine measuring methods, but for now was not removed and not incorporated in the accounting system. Also, ore losses occur when some valuable material is misclassified, for example, as a waste and is sent to waste dumps. \\ Ore dilution & When the material is broken from the stope, it is a mixture of waste rock and reef. The proportion between waste and reef depends on many factors, such as waste width, reef width, intrusions, faults and also mining practices, in particular ore mine. Dilution may be an effect of low-grade material mixing or waste mixing with the ore. This can occur during the operation and then be sent into processing. The effect is reduction of the ore value and waste of material. \\ Ore dilution & We can quantify dilution as the ratio of tonnage of waste mined, which was sent to the mill, to the whole tonnage of ore plus whole waste milled. It can be expressed as percentage: \\ Dilution= \(\frac{Waste\ tons}{Ore\ plus\ waste\ tons}\ \times\ 100\) \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
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Table 2: Main components of mine-to-mill integration in a gold mine. Sources: [45; 46; 47; 48; 49; 50; 51; 52; 53]. Figure 1: Theoretical model of mine-to-mill integration in a gold mine. Source: [45]. * Establishment of process constraints, such as: damage and control, wall stability, presence of water, muckpile characteristics, ore dilution, size of mining equipment, process bottlenecks, power of crushing, and mining equipment. * Definition of downstream requirements, which are key to the process and development of proper drilling or blasting strategies for each domain. * Usage of proven software tools, simulations, and predictive models to establish good level of operating and control strategy to increase and maximize overall profit from the mill. * Implementation and monitoring of integrated operating strategies and establishment of proper standards, for example, quality standards. * Analysis of data and results. * Implementation and maintenance of obtained benefits in the long term perspective. Based on his concept, Metso Minerals Process technology Asia-Pacific optimized and increased efficiency of their processes in each domain. In one of the first studies on the mine-to-mill concept, authors described its use at an operating quarry. The effects were based on the improvement of systematic assessment of crushing and screening processes, as well as on the improvement of performance in size distribution and particle shape of the final products [55]. In his paper [56], [PERSON], J.D., described positive effects of using this concept in lead-zinc operations. The result of mine-to-mill implementation was lower tonnage of ore, which was mined and processed at the plant. They also noted improvement in controllability and better metallurgical performance of the flotation circuit. Besides, the authors observed improved economics of the operations in the company. Many studies were conducted in organizations such as KCGM in Western Australia, Porgera in Papua New Guinea, Highland Valley in British Columbia, and Cadia Hill in New South Wales.