EVOLUTION MINING’S CRACOW GOLD MINE MOVED TO A ‘ZIPPER’ PATTERN – REDUCED DILUTION BY A FURTHER 25%
Minnovare’s Production Optimiser technology was implemented at Cracow in early 2018, with immediate results: Drilling accuracy was improved by 160% (holes drilled to within tolerance), leading to a 62% reduction in average dilution (see full Whitepaper).
With new-found confidence in drilling accuracy, Cracow began trialling ambitious new drill and blast patterns:
Phil Jones, Technical Services Superintendent at Cracow; “Two trial stopes were drilled and blasted using a new ZIPPER pattern. One of these stopes recorded 495 tonnes less dilution compared to what would have been mined using a DICE-5 pattern. This represents about a 25% reduction in waste tonnes for this stope – a significant saving. We estimate that 10% of our stope tonnes going forward can now be ZIPPER instead of DICE-5. At 390,000 stoping tonnes per year, a similar 25% reduction equates to approximately 10,000 tonnes less waste/low grade ore that would otherwise have been hauled and processed. Which at current cost, works out to approximately AUD$1M (USD$0.7M) a year.”
Download the full case-study below.