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As open cut mines become progressively deeper, mining operations face increased operating costs and technical challenges. In-Pit Crusher Conveyor (IPCC) systems offer advantages in the form of continuous operation, reduced labour requirements and decreased energy consumption resulting in lower cost per bank cubic metre. Nevertheless, IPCC systems are associated with high capital costs, lack of flexibility to adapt to changing mine plans and low effective system utilisation. This paper investigates alternative IPCC configurations for pre-stripping application in an open pit coal mine. It demonstrates that system redundancy in the form of introducing parallel conveyor lines with spreaders is capable of improving IPCC productivity by 9·4–12·6%. Parallel conveying systems have higher Equivalent Unit Costs (EUCs) than do single conveyor IPCC configurations. Nevertheless, introducing redundancy into IPCC systems enables higher production and associated coal revenue. Using an indicative metallurgical coal price and stripping ratio, it was demonstrated that parallel conveyor IPCC systems can provide higher profit than single conveyor line IPCC alternatives.
Londono et al. (Sun,) studied this question.