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Mineral Economics

Mineral economics addresses the economic and policy issues associated with the production and use of mineral commodities. While drawing on the principles of general economics and using similar methods of economic analysis, particular emphasis is put on the non-renewable character of mineral raw materials and the uncertainties related with natural mineral deposits.

Any sound mineral economics approach is inherently oriented towards sustainability. The avoidance of excessive resource depletion (in German: "Raubbau") has guided responsible mining operations since centuries. Similarly, ASM policy issues are closely related to the macro- and micro-economic topics of "open access" and "common pool" resources. Responsible mining aims for minimizing the externalization of social and environmental costs.

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What tbb.hru can offer:

Starting with the topic of his PhD thesis (investigations on optimum cutoff grade strategies), Felix Hruschka's work was permanently related with aspects of mineral economics, the sustainability of mineral extraction in particular, and the micro- and macro-economic topics of wealth generation and poverty reduction through mineral extraction.

A field of particular experience of tbb.hru is the development of mine cost models for decision making, as part of pre-feasibility and feasibility studies of medium-scale industrialized mining operations. Up to now, cost models for coal, iron, copper and gold mines - open pit as well as underground and covering wide ranges of capacities - have been elaborated.