Determination of Final Pit Depth of the Western Part of the Aynak Copper Deposit by Surpac and NPV Software

Abstract

the pit depth of the western part of the Aynak copper deposit. Despite exploratory boreholes in this area, the final pit depth has not yet been determined. Post-processing drilling data was used to model the deposit in Surpac, and the resulting model was imported into NPV Scheduler. Considering economic parameters, optimization was performed to determine the final pit limit and mining depth. The findings show that the optimal final pit depth is 540 meters. At this depth, the extractable reserve is estimated to be 57,353,400 million tons, with a cut-off grade of 0.3% and a stripping ratio of 1:4; open-pit mining is economically justified. These results can serve as a basis for decision-making in mining planning and the future development of the mine.