About This Project
Energy Curves is CEEC’s benchmarking tool for comminution energy. Each mine is a bar on a cost-curve-style chart, its width the annual production and its height the energy intensity, so an operator can see where its circuit sits against its peers.
Why it exists
A circuit is hard to improve without knowing how it compares. The curves show where it stands, privately.
Status & next steps
Live, with results updated monthly and no charge for the data analysis.
Who is involved
The University of Queensland holds the data on a secure server. The tool grew from the Ballantyne and Powell survey of gold and copper mines (2014).
The Four Profiles
Hardness, with the laboratory Bond Work Index shown beside the plant’s Operating Work Index; size specific energy, the energy used to make new material below 75 microns; tonne intensity, energy per tonne, shaped by the required grind size; and grade intensity, energy per unit of metal, using copper-equivalent values for polymetallic ores.
How to Take Part
Operators complete the Energy Curve Program survey. Public charts never identify a mine: each contributor receives a confidential report showing only its position against unidentified others.