Gold Miner Reduces Costs

Gold Miner Reduces Costs and Builds Continuous Improvement Capability

CHALLENGE

A global gold miner faced profitability pressures at a remote North African open-pit gold mine. A combination of falling gold prices and rising operating costs threatened the mine’s operating model, eroding the business case and feasibility of a planned expansion. The mine needed to improve costs and productivity to drive unit cost reductions. The short-term focus was a cost reduction process supported by a pipeline of cost reduction opportunities across all departments. The longer-term aim was to build internal continuous improvement capabilities to sustain improvements and identify new opportunities.

SOLUTION

dss⁺ introduced proven continuous improvement tools to deliver both productivity improvements and cost reductions; and coached the mine’s operations and CI roles to deliver and sustain the process and drive further upgrades. Focus areas included:

• Identifying and executing 27 cost reduction and productivity initiatives (mining, maintenance, processing, site services)
• Refining the management operating systems to improve accountability and delivery of results
• Enhanced cost management disciplines to reduce discretionary spend
• Debottlenecking the Carbon in Leach (CiL) circuits to maintain production despite an aging crusher system and lower quality feed