Upgraded Minesight torque simplifies drillhole data management and Mintec talk at SME

Posted by Daniel Gleeson on 26th January 2012

minesight.jpgThe complexities of drillhole management are made simpler with Mintec’s release of MineSight Torque Version 2.2 this week. Drillhole, blasthole, and other sample data is stored in a Microsoft SQL server database and managed by MSTorque. The program offers tools for filtering, importing, exporting, formatting, reporting and editing. Like other MineSight products, MSTorque can be standardised for many users, while being customised to suit individual needs. With the release of Version 2.2, composites can now be imported into MSTorque from all supported data sources – ODBC, CSV and SQL. Imported composites are saved as composite sets. Appending to existing imported composite sets is supported as well. At the SME annual meeting this year (February 19-22), Mintec will present a talk about MineSight’s pivotal role in mine planning. Senior MineSight specialist, Ernesto Vivas, will discuss: Schedule optimising for a typical hardrock open pit mine. He will focus on La Caridad, a copper and molybdenum mine in Sonora, Mexico. This porphyry copper deposit is one of Mexico’s largest mines, extracting 90,000 t/d. Vivas’s workshop will examine how MineSight Schedule Optimizer (MSSO) generates complex schedules honouring quantities and qualities requirements while accounting for detailed haul profiles. The case study will analyse the steps required to create a practical monthly schedule with MSSO for La Caridad. It will also discuss the scheduling considerations, data preparation, program set-up and output examination. MSSO is one of several MineSight products exploiting 64-bit technology. Recent upgrades have included a seamless integration with MineSight Haulage. Vivas, from Venezuela, graduated from the University of Arizona in 2000 with a BSc in Mining Engineering. A scheduling expert, he works from Mintec’s Tucson, Arizona headquarters and travels the world to help mine planners with long-range and short-range planning.

MSTorque stores a rich set of data for composites that may not be available at import time, so it allows for three different ways of importing the data. All additional required information is then calculated from this data.

1. From and to: If the start and end depths of the composite interval are available, then the location of the composite interval is calculated from the geometry of the sample site.

2. Start and end location of composite interval: Start and end depth of the composite interval are calculated by projecting the location on the geometry of the sample site.

3. Midpoint and total composite length: Start and end depths, as well as location of the start and end points of the composite interval are calculated by projecting the locations on the geometry of the sample site.

The improved importing functions allow importing directly from CSV files (with various column separators and text qualifier options), and from SQL Server database files. A subset of total records from ODBC, CSV files
and SQL Server can also be imported.

Expect more improvements in MSTorque and other MineSight products throughout 2012.