Development of a Grade Control Technique Optimizing Dilution and Ore Loss Trade-off in Lateritic Bauxite Deposits

Abstract

This thesis focusses on the development of new techniques to improve the resource estimation of laterite-type bauxite deposits. Contributions of the thesis include (1) a methodology to variogram-free modelling of the ore boundaries using multiple-point statistics, (2) an approach to automate the parameter tuning process for multiple-point statistical algorithms and (3) a grade control technique to minimise the economic losses due to dilution and ore loss.