Bluecap: A geospatial model to assess regional economic-viability for mineral resource development

Stuart D.C. Walsh, Stephen A. Northey, David Huston, Mohan Yellishetty and Karol Czarnota

Resources Policy, 2020, vol. 66, issue C

Abstract: Frontier mineral exploration is often exclusively focused on assessing geological potential without consideration for the economic viability of resource development. This strategy may overlook potentially prosperous zones for more geologically-favoured but financially-disadvantageous regions, or conversely, may introduce implicit biases against potential developments without due regard to underlying economies of scale or proximity to infrastructure. Accordingly, in this paper, we introduce a numerical model aimed at identifying economic fairways, i.e. areas permissive to mineral development from an economic perspective. The model, Bluecap, combines large-scale infrastructure and geological datasets to conduct geospatial analysis of the economic-viability of mining operations across Australia.

Keywords: Economic fairways; Mineral exploration; Integrated economic assessment; Numerical cost modelling; Mining; Mineral processing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jrpoli:v:66:y:2020:i:c:s0301420719306658

DOI: 10.1016/j.resourpol.2020.101598

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