Haul Truck Upgrade Feasibility Study for an Open-Pit Peruvian Copper Mine

An optimized mining production fleet improves the safety, efficiency, and profitability of a mining operation. This project determines the feasibility of a Peruvian copper mine using larger trucks to cope with a rapid increase in production during the next 30 years. The infrastructure on the site, the crusher in particular, is already equipped to process a larger throughput of material. Most of the trucks in the operation’s current fleet have a nominal payload of 218 metric tons, which could increase to 327 or 363 metric tons with new trucks from various manufacturers. Ascertaining the most profitable course of action for this mine site involved assessing existing and replacement trucks for capital, operating, overhaul, maintenance, and rebuild costs, and manipulating the data in spreadsheets to determine how many new trucks would be needed and how many would need to be rebuilt during the next 30 years.