OBJECTIVES & WHO SHOULD ATTEND

• Providing a sound understanding of sampling quality and protocols, important concepts and methods of mining geostatistics
• Highlighting the ability of geostatistics to solve practical problems in mineral resource estimation
• Showing how geostatistics can characterise the spatial behaviour (continuity, anisotropy etc.) of the mineralization
• Giving practical hands-on on how to use geostatistics to consistently estimate block grades from the more irregular sample grades (support effect)

This course will be useful for:

• Mine and exploration geologists,
• Mining engineers
• Managers involved in grade control, ore reserves estimation
• Feasibility studies or medium to long term planning.

Date:             May 19 – 23, 2025

Time:             8:30am – 5:00pm GMT each day

Location:      Bawansah Cottage, Ekumfi Ebuakwa

Fees:              Course fees are in US Dollars (exclusive of taxes)     

Regular: US$2,000

Early bird: US$1,800 (before 5^th May 2025)

Multi-person (>2) and WAIMM members: US$1,800

Registration Deadline:    15th May 2025

COURSE CONTENT

1. Introduction to Geostatistics

• What is data Quality and sampling protocols should a geoscientist employ?
• What is geostatistics and why use geostatistics?
• The framework of geostatistics: regionalised variables, stationarity. Understanding the data through standard statistics (histograms, cross plots, declustering).

B. Practical Variography

• Calculating experimental variograms: dealing with outliers, locating the directions of mineralisation.
• Modelling the variogram: properties of the variogram model, testing for stationarity.

C. Geological Modelling

• Interpreting the spatial behaviour of the mineralisation: the nugget effect and the anisotropies. Dispersion and support: the distribution of block grades, additivity, regularization of the data.

D. Resource Estimation

• The theory of kriging: the properties of simple and ordinary kriging, the kriging weights.
• Applying the theory: defining a kriging neighborhood and cross-validation.
• Multivariate geostatistics: calculating and modelling cross-variograms and properties of cokriging.
• Applying geostatistics in practice: the different steps of a study, from exploration to production.
• Introduction to Simulations: reproducing the observed variability for grade control and mine planning.
• An overview of the different techniques for simulating grades or geology.

FACILITATOR

Dan Bansah is the Chairman and Managing Director of Minecon Resources and Services Limited (MINECON). Prior to joining MINECON in July 2018, Dan was Banro Corporation’s Head of Projects and Operations for 5 years from 2013 with responsibility for the management of two mining operations and two advance exploration projects. Dan was Banro’s Vice President of Exploration from 2007 to 2013 and led a team of geologists in the discovery of over 17 million ounces of gold on Banro’s Twangiza – Namoya Gold Belt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Before joining Banro in 2004, Dan was the Group Mineral Resource Manager with Ashanti Goldfields, with responsibilities for the coordination, training, auditing and compilation of Ashanti’s Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves in Africa. Whiles in Ashanti, Dan headed the modelling and evaluation team to appraise several projects and operations in Africa, leading to their acquisition by the erstwhile Ashanti Goldfields. Dan has over 30 years-experience in the gold mining industry in Africa. He has a MSc in Mineral Exploration with Distinction from Leicester University, UK. Dan is a Member and a Chartered Professional of AusIMM, a Fellow and Member of the Governing Council of the West African Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (WAIMM) and a Member of the Ghana Institute of Geoscientists. Dan is credited with numerous technical papers; both published and unpublished.

CONTACT US:

Please contact the WAIMM office on +233 558073244 or send email to events@waimm.org for any further information about the course and we would gladly get back to you.