Whittle Consulting Ltd. (WCL) announced a partnership with Largo Resources to apply its Enterprise Optimization solution on Largo’s Maracas Menchen vanadium operation in Bahia, Brazil.
According to WCL, Enterprise Optimization is unlike other unit-focused optimization processes. It analyzes the full business chain simultaneously over the life of the mine with the focus being on net present value (NPV) improvement, resulting in greater capital discipline, improved margins and accelerated cash flows. It achieves these results through collaboration with the client’s team, using proprietary “Prober” software and applying recognized technical and economic maxims such as Ken Lane’s variable cut-off grade, theory of constraints and activity-based costing.
WCL said Enterprise Optimization has been used on more than 100 occasions in both projects and operations globally and has generally improved-asset NPV.
The Maracas mine extracts ore from a central open pit, with future satellite pits also planned along a 7-km trend, feeding a process comprising crushing, grinding, magnetic separation, concentrate roasting and leaching, filtration, and precipitation circuits to produce vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) flake and byproduct iron ore concentrate at a plant feed rate of 1.4 million mt/y. The entire process will be scheduled and modeled within Prober to develop monthly, quarterly and annual LOM schedules.
WCL said the Maracas Menchen mine has a number of potential value-added opportunities that have not been identified using conventional silo-based optimization techniques. It anticipated that, through the application of best practices and knowledge transfer to the Maracas Menchen team, these opportunities will be exploited and provide a significant improvement in both cash flow and overall NPV of the operation.
