CAIDTech Research Series | Lima, Peru | World Mining Congress | July 2026 At WMC 2026, Roque Benavides said something the industry's financial models are not built to reflect. This article is about what that gap costs. Roque Benavides · Chairman, Compañía de Minas Buenaventura · NYSE: BVN THE QUESTION ON THE PANEL The panel at the 27th World Mining Congress was called "Does The Mining Business Model Have to Change?" It was a question posed to some of the most experienced

CAIDTech Research Series | Lima, Peru | World Mining Congress | July 2026 At WMC 2026 in Lima, the Stanford researcher whose algorithm guided one of the largest copper discoveries of the past decade left one question deliberately open. This article takes it from there. Jef Caers · Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences, Stanford University · Founder, MINERAL-X THE PROBLEM THAT DOES NOT END AT THE DRILL HOLE There is a point in mineral exploration when uncertainty col

By Dr. Luis A. Martínez Tipe, PhD Director General & Principal Researcher, CAIDTech Originally published: October 31, 2015 DEFINITIONS Mining project = Real asset Future = Uncertainty = Risk + Potential Operational hedging + Managerial hedging = Real options analysis Expanded Project Value = Original mining project value + the value for having the right but not the obligation of implementing best strategies. The 4 STAGES COMMENTS Not a trivial process, will vary from project

By Dr. Luis A. Martínez Tipe, PhD Director General & Principal Researcher, CAIDTech Originally published: November 6, 2015 I recently attended a one day class about the importance of feasibility studies when evaluating a mining project. I attended it, because I wanted to know the opinions and comments of the different speakers (experts on the different stages of a Feasibility Study) about how the current market downturn was affecting the mining industry, and what new advances

By Dr. Luis A. Martínez Tipe, PhD Director General & Principal Researcher, CAIDTech Originally published: June 2, 2016 This is the summary of one of the problems to be analysed during day 3 (Quantitative Real Options Analysis) of the course/workshop titled "Open Pit Mine Project Evaluation in the Face of Uncertainty: A Practical Approach”. http://randoanalytics.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2016-Course-Flyer-.pdf THE INVESTMENT PROBLEM A mining firm is trying to decide whe

By Dr. Luis A. Martínez Tipe, PhD Director General & Principal Researcher, CAIDTech Originally published: June 14, 2016 THE IRR - DEFINITION The Internal Rate of Return (IRR) is a very popular measure of investment performance and consequently project appraisal, and it has much to commend it. It is normally explained using its mathematical definition, i.e., the IRR is the discount rate that causes the net present value to equal zero. In particular it takes into account the ti

Dr. Luis Martínez Tipe · Founder & Principal Researcher, CAIDTech · Mining Engineer, PhD Abstract This paper presents an Integrated Exploration Project Portfolio Selection (iEPPS) framework designed to support strategic decision-making in mining exploration. Traditional exploration portfolio selection methods often rely on subjective judgement, limited datasets, and deterministic evaluations. In contrast, the proposed iEPPS methodology integrates Quantitative Risk Analysis (Q

By Dr. Luis A. Martínez Tipe, PhD Director General & Principal Researcher, CAIDTech Originally published: July 18, 2016 In mining (and other fields) the word integration is a word like system; i.e., they have so many meanings and shades of gray the practitioner is never quite sure exactly how current mining technology is using the words in practice. While trying to look for the best and simplest way of explaining how I see what the difference between a communicating (pseud

By Dr. Luis A. Martínez Tipe, PhD Director General & Principal Researcher, CAIDTech Originally published: September 27, 2016 CURRENT FRAMEWORK The current economic downturn has shown that managerial strategy and operational transformation is a top priority for engineers working in a mine operation as well as for the management team. Mining organisations that do not cope with chance and uncertainty within the evaluation process relies more heavily on instinct to make critica

If so, why do project decision makers keep forecasting the future with average values? By Dr. Luis A. Martínez Tipe, PhD Director General & Principal Researcher, CAIDTech Originally published: January 21, 2017 INTRODUCTION Ever since Laplace's time (Laplace's demon, 1814), the idea of being able to know what will or might happen in the future has been a central tenet of science, and consequently a tenet of any process, system or activity where future values need to be used

By Dr. Luis A. Martínez Tipe, PhD Director General & Principal Researcher, CAIDTech Originally published: June 4, 2017 This article explains, in a simple fashion, the concept of the “flaw of averages in mine planning” displayed in Fig. 1. It states that, in mining, when mine planners and mine managers plan and evaluate the future of a mine operation, uncertain variables are often replaced with single average values. The result of doing this is the generation of wrong/spurio

By Dr. Luis A. Martínez Tipe, PhD Director General & Principal Researcher, CAIDTech Originally published: December 16, 2017 The exploration project portfolio selection ("EPPS") is a progression of "go-no-go" decisions based on successive evaluations of relevant experience and company information. Traditionally, one of the first questions asked by the corporate office of a mining company before beginning an EPPS campaign is: What size deposit (referring to tons of ore and me

By Dr. Luis A. Martínez Tipe, PhD Director General & Principal Researcher, CAIDTech Originally published: February 1, 2018 Mineral projects are complex businesses that demand a constant assessment of risk. This is because the operating life of a mine project is normally given in the order of tens of years and its value is typically influenced by many underlying economic, operational and physical uncertainties, such as prices, grades, qualities, schedules, quantities, and soc

By Dr. Luis A. Martínez Tipe, PhD Director General & Principal Researcher, CAIDTech Originally published: April 29, 2018 To take advantage of current technology and optimisation processes, in 2016 the manager from R&O Analytics, Dr. Luis Martinez, visited Mr. Alexandre Marinho, manager of MiningMath and creator of the SimSched direct block scheduling technology, in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, to discuss different ways for improving access to new technology worldwide,

CAIDTech Research Series | Asuncion, Paraguay | May 2026 A conversation with Victor Fernandez on thirty years of patience, a billion-dollar investment decision, and the methodological gap the mining industry has not closed. Victor Fernandez · Country Manager, Uranium Energy Corp · President, CAPAMI Interview conducted and edited by Jean P. Muñoz Paraguay will soon host what may become one of the largest and highest-grade titanium deposits ever brought into production.

By Dr. Luis A. Martínez Tipe, PhD Director General & Principal Researcher, CAIDTech Originally published: August 22, 2018 It seems that current economic downturn (which seems to be in its last stages) has triggered the need for technological innovation in the mining industry. This is the reason for which, currently, there is much talk in the mining business about the requirement for research, development, and innovation, to start game-changers corporate innovation projects.

By Dr. Luis A. Martínez Tipe, PhD Director General & Principal Researcher, CAIDTech Originally published: June 27, 2022 I would like to comment about the fifth “true/false” statement I posted previously in https://lnkd.in/eW5d2_-8). Is the Kriging block grade model the best block model to run the mine plan and design optimisation process, where the (technical and economic) results, including the mine plan and design, are seen as expected (averages) results? Even though thi

En los últimos años, la evolución de la tecnología, desde el análisis de datos avanzado usando el poder de las nuevas computadoras, la data ciencia y la inteligencia artificial, ha alentado a muchas empresas mineras a cambiar su forma tradicional de planear y operar sus proyectos mineros, dirigiendo sus esfuerzos hacia una operación minera más holística e inteligente. Al lograr mejoras operativas que incrementan la productividad, y en consecuencia el valor económico de los pr

By Dr. Luis A. Martínez Tipe, PhD Director General & Principal Researcher, CAIDTech Originally published: February 14, 2026 In a previous paper, I discussed “The Flaw of Averages in Mine Project Evaluation” (read it here). The main issue with traditional evaluation methods is that they often rely on single estimated values (averages), which are inadequate when dealing with uncertainty and non-linear processes like mine planning and design optimization. In mining, using aver

By Dr. Luis A. Martínez Tipe, PhD Director General & Principal Researcher, CAIDTech Originally published: September 3, 2015 Fuente: Savage, S. (2000). The Flaw of Averages. reproduced with permission. INTRODUCTION Traditionally, mine organisations use various types of quantitative methods to estimate profit and loss associated with a proposed mine project. Among all these measures of profitability, the Net Present Value (NPV) that is based on the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF)