Objectives of Feasibility Studies / Цели технико-экономического обоснования

Feasibility studies are required in the pre-production stages to justify the continued investment of money. Usually a scoping study is followed by one or more prefeasibility studies which reflect the increasing level of technical and economic knowledge gained at the various earlier stages. These culminate in a final feasibility study which demonstrates the economic feasibility of the project with sufficient certainty to allow a decision to mine. The level of engineering which has been attained in the feasibility study is usually well short of that required for construction, so a further period of detailed engineering follows. This usually continues during construction and only tapers off when production is imminent. The first evaluations of the property occur well before the scoping study, and form the basis of a decision to commence exploration. These may involve considering likely costs and revenues for conceptual targets, or sometimes look at the economics of discovering a similar orebody to one which was mined on or near the property in the past. Many times such analyses are not done prior to exploration. This procedure sets minimum targets for grade and tonnages against which the progress of exploration can be reviewed or considered. <...>