Geovariances: Where no one has gone before

Codelco (Corporación Nacional del Cobre de Chile), the largest copper producing company in the world, has been using Isatis for more than 10 years.

"We enjoy Isatis as the most complete geostatistics software in the mining industry and we use the software to address many issues at various stages of a mining project:

• Feasibility:

• We take advantage of the powerful Isatis module Exploratory Data Analysis to assess the spatial continuity of geology and grades. This particularly helps us to reduce uncertainty and to provide feedback to geologists which enable a better interpretation of the geological units and a more precise tonnage and grade estimation. This has a direct and positive impact on the mine planning stage.

• We use the Isatis Conditional Simulations module to model grades and geological units. This helps us to assess the degree of uncertainty in tonnage and metal estimates in the early stages of project feasibility studies. We also use Conditional Simulations to help assess uncertainty in the mine schedule, reducing potential losses.

• We perform Cokriging with Isatis for our deposits with more than one grade variable.

• Production:

• We use Isatis to study grade variability in our processing plants, helping us to minimize processing losses.

• We perform Conditional Simulations in Isatis to assess variability of copper content and to better understand the impact of mining sequence on variability in the plant.

• We work with Geovariances consultants to address the estimation of geometalurgical variables and metallurgical recovery issues.

Last but not least, we appreciate Geovariances service and technical support, which is very helpful and precise, providing quick solutions to our problems and needs by phone or by email."

Eduardo Jara Salamé
Ingeniero Especialista Senior, Gerencia Técnica
Vicepresidencia Corporativa de Proyectos
Codelco - Chile