BUSINESS
RECOVERING
DIMENSION STONE
Correct quarry layout can have a significant impact on the increase of recovery and value of dimension stone, write Nicolaas C Steenkamp and Breton Scott.
Dimension stone is naturally occurring rock material cut, shaped or selected for use in blocks, slabs, sheets or other construction units of specialised shapes and sizes. Typical markets for dimension stone include floors and paving, wall cladding, structural works, memorial art and other specialised works. Unlike precious metals and base metal commodities, dimension stone operations are highly dependent on customer requirements.
Customers determine the saleable specifications and matching these with the availability of suitable dimension stone raw material in ground, is the difference between profits and losses. Typically, the production dimension stone blocks have an average recovery of saleable blocks between 3 % and 30 %. Therefore, robust minerals marketing activities to secure several products from the raw material, which must be linked to the mining layout is critical to success.
Bowline Professional Services, as a mining consulting practice, supports some of the decision-making processes during the layout design stage of a dimension stone quarry. The most fundamental key to a successful dimension stone quarry is to
10 _ QUARRY SA | MAY / JUNE 2018