Development planning for the Oyu Tolgoi panel cave mine

Authors: Crook, K; Prince, F Download Paper Open access courtesy of:

DOI https://doi.org/10.36487/ACG_rep/1815_30_Crook

Cite As:
Crook, K & Prince, F 2018, 'Development planning for the Oyu Tolgoi panel cave mine', in Y Potvin & J Jakubec (eds), Caving 2018: Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Block and Sublevel Caving, Australian Centre for Geomechanics, Perth, https://doi.org/10.36487/ACG_rep/1815_30_Crook



Abstract:
Oyu Tolgoi is a large panel cave mine currently under construction in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. Due to the overall length of the Hugo North orebodyat Oyu Tolgoi stretching almost 2 km, the Lift 1 production area has been split into three production panels. These panels in turn have been sub-blocked into smaller, more manageable segments for development. Panel 0 (P0) was broken into P0A and P0B, southern and northern halves respectively, for the sequencing of development activities. The overall sequence philosophy for the panel is to fully develop these sub-panels and hand them over for production activities. The isolation of activities is seen as a risk reduction because it reduces the interactions between the undercutting and development activities. This paper will discuss the strategies followed for development of such a large-scale underground production panel, including the development sequence, undercut initiation, and the challenges of executing a project in a remote area of the world.

Keywords: large-scale, development, production panel, remote location