Feasibility Study - 2019 entry

The Feasibility Study provides a climax to the Mining Engineering course; the culmination of three years’ hard work and study condensed into three weeks’ data review, decision making and technical report writing (alongside some sleepless nights, moments of panic and a bit of cursing your lecturers). 

The data provided is patchy and the available time ridiculously short…. but at the end of the day you’ll realise that what we’ve been trying to teach you IS important, how various different modules fit together and, most important of all, that you have got a future as a mining engineer.
 

The module aims to simulate the conditions and demands of a typical due diligence exercise of the type undertaken in industry when reviewing a feasibility study. Working individually on project data supplied, students critically review, update and recommend improvements to an existing mine design and development plan. The exercise involves the need to review cost estimates and re-evaluate a mining project, its financial viability and the broader business/industry sector risks associated with it.

The module integrates numerous aspects of the undergraduate course and provides an opportunity for a student to focus and apply the skills and knowledge they have acquired across numerous modules in an open ended assessment. Students are introduced to the planning and construction of technical and scientific reports and gain experience in technical report writing.

This is an exercise which develops and draws on students’ ability to apply their skills in problem solving, communication, and time management. Running as an entirely remotely taught module in 2020 over a relatively restricted period of time; this module also requires students to exercise initiative, demonstrate personal responsibility for their learning and to monitor and adjust a personal programme of work on an on-going basis.

This module forms an integral part of the requirement for accreditation to the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3).


 

On successful completion of this module, you should be able to:

Module Specific Skills and Knowledge:

1 gain experience on the collation, synthesis and interpretation of a wide range of technical data.

2 analyse, synthesize and criticise information relating to the feasibility study of a mining project

3 show awareness of and ability to make general evaluations of risk issues in the development of a mine; including health & safety, environmental and commercial risk.
 

Discipline Specific Skills and Knowledge:

4 apply appropriate analysis methods for solving complex problems in mining engineering and to assess the limitations of the data and methods applied
 

5 develop an understanding of and skills to work with information that may be incomplete or uncertain, quantify the effect of this on the design and suggest improvements to mitigate deficiencies
 

Personal and Key Transferable/ Employment Skills and Knowledge:

6 develop technical report writing skills;

7 improve time management, demonstrate personal responsibility for your independent learning and show ability to develop and adjust a personal programme of work to fit tight work deadlines.

 

Students carry out a due diligence exercise of the type undertaken in industry when reviewing a feasibility study. Students are provided with a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) report for a particular project and accompanying data files such as spreadsheets of original costs/financial analysis.

The simulated industrial experience scenario presented is that a student has started work for a junior mining company that is considering acquiring a mining property as part of a package of assets. The Board of Directors of their company has not had time to review the available documentation and the student has been asked to prepare some summary reports and an investment case decision to present to them.

Working individually on project data supplied, students critically review, update and recommend improvements to the existing mine design and development plan. The exercise involves the need to produce two reports over a three week period. Report deadlines are staggered to allow for better time management and for some generic formative feedback to be returned to the cohort to help inform and improve quality of the second report. The module lead and other key staff provide an initial overview of the tasks via a Teams meeting and are then available for help/advice via several Teams drop-in sessions each week and/or individually via email/Teams.

Report 1: Executive Summary and Risk Analysis

Students are required to read through the PEA provided and produce an Executive Summary of the report based on its existing content.

Students also need to produce an Analysis of Risks or Risk Matrix for the project – using the specifications outlined in the original report but in the context of the current economic, political and environmental situation. While the bulk of the risk matrix is expected to be tabulated, additional text discussion is required that focuses specifically on the impact of a major global pandemic on the mining sector in general and on this project in particular, in terms of short-medium term impacts on the project’s cost drivers, working practices and anticipated development and production schedule.

Report 2: Upgrade and Investment Case

Under the scenario presented to students; if their company does decide to purchase the project’s assets, the next phase will be to upgrade the old PEA report to a pre-feasibility, NI 43-101 compliant report. To help plan the programme of work required to produce a pre-feasibility study students are asked to critically review the existing data and suggest key areas for improvement. Students need to identify and select key areas that they feel will need significant attention, give their reasoning why data needs to be updated, identify any errors or omissions that they feel the current data contains, and provide an indication of the sort of additional data/testwork/design work that will be required to bring the report up to a pre-feasibility standard.

Based in part on their answers to previous parts of the assessment and including a revised financial analysis of the project, students must then make an investment case recommendation as to the overall viability/feasibility of the project and the best development options to take forward in subsequent studies. They should justify decisions with suitable discussion and include a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis of the project and its potential.

An individual piece of coursework 100%

Basic reading:

All necessary reference and study material for each feasibility study project will be provided.

ELE – http://vle.exeter.ac.uk/

Other resources:

Course notes and coursework exercises from all previous modules.

Reading list for this module: