Assessing geological uncertainty of a cement raw material deposit, southern Vietnam, based on hierarchical simulation

Resource modeling plays a crucial role in raw material quality management for cement manufacturing. Research has shown that geological uncertainty in resource modeling is inevitable and results in risk to future extraction planning and operations of the cement plant. This study aims to assess the geological uncertainty and associated risk in modeling a cement raw material deposit in southern Vietnam. For this deposit, soil, clay, laterite, and limestone are the four primary rock types, controlling the occurrence and spatial distribution of chemical grades. In this study, hierarchical simulation method was used to evaluate the uncertainty. Rock types were first simulated, and the chemical grades conditioning to the rock types were then generated. The results demonstrated the capability of the hierarchical simulation approach to incorporate the uncertainty of rock types in resource modeling and to allow evaluating the risks in providing the desired raw material for the cement plant in the form of grade-tonnage curves. (C) 2020 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of China University of Mining & Technology.