Assessing the Returns to Copper Exploration, 1989-2008
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Economic returns for the copper industry have been assessed by building cash flow models for each of the 100 new mines brought into production over the past 20 years. Ninety-one of the 100 new mines returned the assumed 8% cost of capital and generated a positive net present value (NPV) at the development decision point. Economic criteria for individual mines are highly variable with NPV ranging from −$111 million (−$111M) to +$3850M (all money values are presented in United States dollars) and internal rate of return (IRR) ranging from −8% to +95%. The copper industry collectively would generate approximately $39 billion dollars in NPV through the development of the 100 new mines. The returns to exploration ($174M per deposit) were measured by deducting the cost of exploration per deposit ($221M) from the returns to development per deposit ($395M). Overall, the copper business has provided positive returns to exploration. However, the variability in returns across deposits means that only 41 of the 100 new mines can carry the average cost of exploration. The long lead times and high costs associated with exploration result in only those deposits with large amounts of contained copper being able to cover the average finding cost of the industry. The returns to development and exploration are shown to be highly sensitive to the cost of capital and metal price assumptions. With respect to deposit type, porphyry deposits are both larger (NPV) and exhibit lower profitability (IRR) than the nonporphyry deposits. On a geographic basis, returns to development and exploration are higher in Chile than elsewhere, reflecting the larger average deposit size and lower average exploration cost per deposit. © 2010 Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum. All rights reserved. Sommaire Les retours sur investissement ont ete evalues par des modeles de valeur actualisee de flux de tresorerie pour chacune des 100 dernieres mines mises en production au cours des dernieres 20 annees. Quatre-vingt onze des cent mines les plus recentes ont retourne les couts en capital assumes de 8% et genere une valeur actualisee nette positive (VAN) au moment de la prise d’une decision de developper. Les criteres economiques de ces mines individuelles sont hautement variables avec des VAN allant de −$111 million (−$111M) a +$3850M (toutes les valeurs monetaires sont presentees en dollars Americains) et les taux de retour internes (TRI) vont de −8% a +95%. L’industrie du cuivre genererait collectivement environ $39 milliards de dollars en VAN par le developpement de 100 nouvelles mines. Les retours sur l’exploration ($174M par gisement) ont ete calcules en deduisant le cout de l’exploration par gisement ($221M) des retours sur le developpement par gisement ($395M). L’industrie du cuivre a generalement genere des retours sur l’exploration positifs. La variabilite des retours d’un gisement a l’autre n’a toutefois permis qu’a 41 des 100 nouvelles mines de soutenir les couts moyens d’exploration. La longueur des delais de mise en production et les couts d’exploration eleves font que seuls les gisements contenant une grande quantite de cuivre peuvent soutenir les couts moyens encourus par l’industrie pour leur decouverte. Les retours sur le developpement et l’exploration s’averent etre tres sensibles au cout du capital et aux assomptions sur le prix des metaux. En ce qui a trait aux types de gisement, les gites de type porphyrique presentent a la fois une plus grande taille (VAN) et une profitabilite moindre (TRI) que les autres types de gisement. D’un point de vue geographique, le retour sur le developpement et l’exploration est plus grand au Chili qu’ailleurs, ce qui decoule de la taille moyenne des gisements qui y est plus grande et des couts moyens d’exploration par gisement qui sont plus faibles. © 2010 Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum. All rights reserved.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".