STRATEGIC PRODUCTION PLANNING OF IRON ORE IN GHORABI AREA, BAHARIYA OASIS

Abstract

Ghorabi Deposit is one of the four promising iron ore reserves located within the Bahariya Oasis among El Gedida, Nasser and El Harra. The iron ores of Bahariya oasis generally is considered of strategic importance as the steel industry is a major contributor to the national economy of every developed country. Previous studies had confirmed the existence of iron ore upgrading problem related to decreasing the concentration of detrimental elements such as manganese and chlorine. Their concentrations in some regions reach up to 15% and 8% respectively, which is very high according to the blast furnace required specifications and also cannot be processed by mineral dressing techniques economic wise. The main aim and objective of this thesis is to present some possible production planning and scheduling scenarios that can be used in order to exploit the mineralization with efficiency. This is done by firstly studying the ore statistically and breaking it down into different domains of mineralization. Then, a geostatistical study is carried out for each of these domains to study the mineralization spatially and to produce a good estimate for its contents. This is followed by the determination of the final open pit limit design using the Lerchs and Grossman algorithm. The final step is to achieve an annual production plan and a schedule using the Milawa algorithm using the annual production rate as the main constraint.