The company’s primary goal is to uncover additional mineralisation that is amenable to carbon-in-leach (CIL) treatment. Credit: Mr. Tempter via Shutterstock.com.

St Barbara, an Australian mining company, has announced plans to boost gold production at its Simberi mine in Papua New Guinea after harnessing AI-driven algorithms to classify mineralisation.

The collaboration with Stratum AI has led to the identification of CIL treatable sulphides, which were previously deemed unsuitable for the existing CIL circuit.

Go deeper with GlobalData

Data Insights

The gold standard of business intelligence.

Find out more

Related Company Profiles

View all

Stratum’s AI algorithms will be used to model sulphur and other oxidation indicators, improving the classification of oxide and sulphide mineralisation.

St Barbara has stated that the anticipated increase in production is a result of additional delineation work on material available for processing and the expected achievement of targeted mining rates and processing plant availabilities.

The company’s primary goal with this modelling is to uncover additional mineralisation that is amenable to CIL treatment, which may have been missed with the current material-type classification methods.

The AI-based approach is set to allow for the reclassification of 3.7 million tonnes at 1.2 grams per tonne of gold, equating to an additional 143koz of CIL treatable material.

How well do you really know your competitors?

Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.

Company Profile – free sample

Thank you!

Your download email will arrive shortly

Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample

We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form

By GlobalData
Visit our Privacy Policy for more information about our services, how we may use, process and share your personal data, including information of your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications. Our services are intended for corporate subscribers and you warrant that the email address submitted is your corporate email address.

This represents a significant increase compared with the current mineral resource model material-type classifications.

The company now aims to increase output to between 70,000oz and 75,000oz for FY25–FY27.

St Barbara managing director and CEO Andrew Strelein said: “The work achieved with Stratum AI has been highly effective in enabling the Simberi team to delineate more ore, which can be treated with the existing CIL plant.

“The increased confidence built from the practical application of the AI work in the last quarter has given us the confidence to reclassify our material types under this new method and add 143,000oz of material that can be processed through the existing circuit.

“In addition, this allows us to plan for a stable annual gold production target over the next three years of 70,000–75,000oz in the lead up to transition to production of a gold concentrate from the sulphide ores.”