Simultaneous Production Scheduling and Waste Management Optimization for an Oil Sands Application

Abstract

Mine planning for oil sands involves the integration of waste management into the long term production planning process. This ensures that while ore is provided for the processing plant, sufficient in-pit tailings containment areas are made available as dedicated disposal areas for backfilling. This enables the creation of a trafficable landscape at the earliest opportunity to facilitate progressive reclamation. Apart from being a regulatory requirement, this integration impacts directly on the profitability and sustainability of oil sands mining operations. This paper introduces a mixed integer linear programming mine planning framework that seeks to simultaneously determine the production schedule, dyke construction schedule and the backfilling schedule. Different waste management strategies were also investigated. The model generated a practical, smooth and uniform schedule for ore, dyke material and backfilling activities. The results show that for the case studies considered, increasing the number of in-pit tailings cells reduces the net present value of the mine as a result of a reduced operational flexibility. However, this strategy makes in-pit tailings storage areas available earlier in the mine life, and ensures an efficient use of in-pit storage areas required for sustainable operations.

A Stepwise-Cluster Inference Model for Phenanthrene Immobilization at the Aqueous/Modified Palygorskite Interface

“…The vials were sealed with Teflon-lined screw caps and were vortexed for 20 s, and then were placed in a reciprocal shaker at 200 rpm for 24 h to reach the sorption equilibrium. Preliminary experiments showed that 24 h were sufficient for the sorption process to reach equilibrium and the experimental loss of phenanthrene was negligible [28][29][30]. Before testing, the samples were placed for 10 min to separate the soil from the solution.…”

A GIS-Based Integer Programming Approach for the Location of Solid Waste Collection Depots

“…Integer programming was used as a tool to assist in the decision-making process to determine the optimal locations to site a number of waste bins across a range of potential depot locations (Ben-Awuah et al, 2015). GIS software was used to determine these potential locations for waste management depots (Blanchard et al, 2015).…”

Mixed Integer Linear Programming for Oil Sands Production Planning and Tailings Management

“…Hence, waste disposal, reclamation planning and dyke construction planning can be well integrated with the mine planning framework. In the literature, few works have addressed such integration, but none of them has covered the mentioned domains completely (Ben-Awuah and Askari-Nasab, 2011; Ben-Awuah et al, 2012; Badiozamani and Askari-Nasab, 2012a; Badiozamani and Askari-Nasab, 2012b; Ben-Awuah, 2013; Badiozamani and Askari-Nasab, 2013a;Ben-Awuah et al, 2015).…”