Performance
Progress of a project
Opportunities are tested and screened by several different stages of work
The evolution of a project from target testing to commissioning can take ten to 20 years involving a series of study stages to reach investment approval and implementation.
The early stages represent a progressive increase in confidence in the technical and economic parameters used to decide whether the project meets Rio Tinto's investment criteria. Early stages of project evolution are broadly termed Exploration. These stages of work are the responsibility of the Exploration group.
Target generation and testing involves the progression from concept to proof of mineralisation at the prospect.
A Project of Merit is defined where mineralisation has been identified through drilling to be of a grade and quantity sufficient to be potentially economic when compared to peer deposits currently in production.
Projects which attract the interest of the relevant Rio Tinto product group are progressed to Order of Magnitude Study. Order of Magnitude is an assessment of all possible options to establish if there could be a viable project, and whether its potential value is sufficient to justify committing significant sums of money to a detailed investigation programme. Any potential "showstoppers" are identified during this stage.
A successful Order of Magnitude Study results in the declaration of a discovery and the transfer of project management from the Exploration group to the relevant Rio Tinto product group. Further work on these projects is broadly defined as Evaluation.
The two main evaluation study phases are Pre-feasibility and Feasibility studies. Pre-feasibility involves an evaluation of project options. This results in a much clearer understanding of the preferred project concept and the key issues. The Feasibility study sees the focus switch to optimisation and engineering of a single scenario identified through the Prefeasibility study. This finally freezes and fully defines the scope in order to tie the project down with a high degree of certainty as to the specifications of what will be constructed.