Stochastic short-term production scheduling and shovel allocation for mining complexes including stockpiling and operational alternatives

A new mathematical model for stochastic short-term optimization of mining complexes is presented that simultaneously optimizes the short-term extraction sequence, shovel allocation including costs of their relocation, stockpiling, and operational alternatives in processing streams. The optimization formulation accounts for metal and material type uncertainty, stemming from the geological reserve, as well as uncertain shovel production, reflecting the natural risk of underperformance of mining equipment. The method has been applied to a real-world gold mining complex. The resulting production schedule requires a minimum amount of shovel movements and shows an increased metal production of +1.23%, leading to a higher expected profit of +0.77%.