A review of drill and blast parameters to reduce dilution at Loulou Mine, Mali

Abstract

Loulou Mine (LM) is a subsidiary company owned by BARRICK GOLD MINE. It is an underground mine that operates longitudinal sublevel open stope mining method. The objectives of this research were set to reduce the dilution rate at the mine. Secondary data consisting of stopes dilution parameters from January to March 2020 were used, rock mass properties, actual drilling, and charging parameters were used as well in this research. Two empirical approaches (Rustan,1992; Myers et al.,1990) were adopted to verify the actual drilling parameters used at the mine. It was noticed that the theoretical values are higher than the burden and spacing used by Loulou mine which means in a particular stope, Loulou mine drills more holes and eventually uses more explosives to mine a stope which leads to dilution. Therefore, it was recommended that the mine has to make a review of its drill and blast parameters.