Mineral Resource and Mineral Reserves Estimations

Geosyntec’s services to support mineral resource and reserves estimations are based on the technical acumen of our geologists and geotechnical and environmental engineers who deeply understand mining and mineral processing and who have experience with both underground and open-pit mining. Our strong team of licensed engineers and professional geologists have Qualified/Competent Person credentials and expertise with base and precious metals, as well as with rare-earth minerals.

To help with mineral resource and mineral reserve estimations, we offer the following services:

• Exploration quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC)
• Audits, validations, and due diligence
• Industry compliance reporting
• Mine design and mine planning
• Tailings, waste rock, and water management design
• Geotechnical engineering
• Capital and operating cost estimation
• Project economic analysis
• Mine closure, reclamation, and conversion

A typical mineral resource estimation includes the following:

• Exploration drilling assay QA/QC
• Geological mapping and interpretation of sections and plans
• Mineral domain determination and construction of three-dimensional domain envelopes for grade interpolation constraints
• Interval composite creation
• Exploratory data analyses (EDA)
• Assessment of whether to employ restrictions using high grade values (outlier/capping determination)
• Variography calculation to analyze the spatial variability of the mineralization
• Development and implementation of appropriate grade estimation plans, including consideration of grade and structural domains within the deposit and selection of drillhole assay composites, search distances and search limitations to be used in the estimation
• Validation of estimates by inspection of sections and plans, and by comparison to nearest neighbor (polygonal) estimates by elevation and coordinates

A typical mineral reserves estimation includes the following:

• Base cases to determine the ultimate pit geometry
• Incremental pits shells developed using different revenue factor or similar method
• Determine which incremental pits will be used as basis for pit phase selection
• Pit designs
• Mine plans
• Estimation of mobile mine equipment, fleet selection and supporting equipment
• Development of surface mine facilities and supporting infrastructure
• Mine capital and operating cost development
• Financial modeling
• Underground mining estimations, including cutoff grade/value determination, design shapes to outline production locations, and mine access and ventilation designs and models