Intelligold-an expert system for gold plant process design

Gold mining projects are a rare opportunity in the minerals industry. They require relatively small capital and give high profitability and fast return on investment compared with other mineral projects. To expand or maintain gold production, continuous development of new deposits and fast implementation of new mining sites are needed. Process design is one of the major issues. As simple and easily extractable ores are almost all exhausted, there is a need for a consistent approach to deal with increasing complexity and decreasing or stagnant gold prices. Process design must consider ore genesis, mineralogical characteristics, ore behaviour in available metallurgical processes, linkage with the mining method, environmental impact, and economic issues. The type of work and environment involved makes this application ideal for using AI tools such as expert systems, fuzzy logic and neural networks. This paper presents Intelligold, an expert system for project development teams to use at the preliminary evaluation and conceptual project stages. Information and knowledge from geology/mineralogy, processing and economics are organized, and recommendations on process options and estimated costs and revenue are given. The knowledge building method is described, together with implementation and verification. Success in building this system suggests application to other ores such as copper and complex base metals.