Linkage of Annual Oil Sands Mine Plan to Composite Tailings Plan

One of the major issues in the current oil sands waste management techniques is a lack of a direct linkage between the long-term mine plans and the quantity of the tailings produced downstream. This research is focused on developing a linkage between oil sands long-term mine plans and the final composite tailings (CT) produced to assist the oil sands production process to be in compliance with the regulations set by Directive 074. A series of mass-balance relations between the ore tonnage and the final CT tonnage were developed. This was followed by the development of a code to employ the mass-balance relations in reporting the CT production schedule using the long-term mine plan. To capture the uncertainties associated with the CT production process, a stochastic simulation model was developed. Finally, sensitivity analysis was carried out to capture the sensitivity of the CT tonnages produced to the fluctuations of the input variables.