At the 12th International Congress of Prospectors and Explorers (proEXPLO 2021), a series of talks and conferences focused on the mining exploration business were grouped into three blocks.

One of the blocks was "From Discovery to Mine", which was held on Thursday 25 and Friday 26, and captured the attention of participants by providing information on methodologies and techniques that are being applied and/or studied.

The first talk was entitled "Terminology for Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves Reporting" and was given by Heller Agustín Bernabé Tapia, who detailed in his summary that one of the conclusions of the study is that mineral resources and ore reserves must always be estimated with economic, geotechnical and metallurgical parameters.

The second presentation addressed the discount ratio and the role of risk in mining decision-making. Representatives of Astay Systems, Alí Ivan Meres Vargas, Juan Manuel Mansilla Olivas and Fernando Enrique Sagastegui Ayala, pointed out in their report that they are constantly looking for ways to include the various sources of risk of a mining project in the assessment.

And the third talk, held on Thursday 25, was "Evaluation of investment projects through risks and uncertainty". According to the document, published on the congress website, Manuel Viera Flores, CEO & Managing Partner Metaproject S.A Chile and General Manager Metaproject Engineering SAC Peru, informed that this paper shows a methodology on how to economically evaluate an investment project, under scenarios of risk and uncertainty, for a correct decision-making.

"The mining industry presents a valuable challenge to project engineering and economic valuation of investments, this is to make intelligent designs with the flexibilities identified in Conceptual Engineering in order to make better and more accurate decisions. This will allow adding value to the business", wrote the also President of the Chilean Chamber of Mines in his paper.

Second day of talks

On Friday 26th, three more presentations were also given. The day began with the presentation "Role and challenges of operational geometallurgy at Cerro Corona, Cajamarca, Peru", given by Julio Castro, Anthony Julian, Edwin Ayala, Gabriel Becerra from Gold Fields, the mining company that operates this important mine.

The deposit’s geometallurgical classification is extremely important for the prediction of metallurgical performance in processing and is aimed at maximizing economic benefit. The definition of GMUs (Geo Metallurgical Units) based on lithology, alteration, structural characterization, mineralogical and metallurgical parameters allow the forecasting of recoveries, throughput, concentration of pollutants and reagents consumption. Production strategies based on geometallurgical models benefit the company by improving mining plans, maintenance plans, impurities effect mitigation and the consequent process optimization,” indicated their paper.

The next talk, given by specialists from Belgium, was entitled "Deepening an old, verticalized pit: rock slope instability hazard assessment using a "digitally augmented" structural database (Flône limestone quarry, Belgium)" and focused on the methodology and results used to assess the rock instability hazard of the Flône pit (Belgium) using a deterministic kinematic stability analysis.

The block ended with the presentation of Solange Guiuliana Ríos Angulo who analyzed the social impact assessment and analysis of socio-environmental conflicts in a mining project in southern Peru using mathematical models.

In her paper, the author stated that the objective of the article is to assess social impacts (SIA) and analyze possible socio-environmental conflicts (ECA) that could arise during the implementation of a mining project, through the use of mathematical models.