Metal accounting and reconciliation is an increasingly important governance issue in all mining operations, in that it is required, from a risk management perspective, that the company is in control of its product throughout the whole mining value chain.Reconciliation is a grossly misunderstood term. It means different things to different people, and therefore one of the purposes of this paper is to ensure a holistic and integrated understanding of 'reconciliation'.Previously, where reconciliation was done, it was often for internal control purposes and loosely applied, sometimes with a low degree of confidence and understanding of the underlying parameters and their natural variability.In most mining operations, issues such as dilution, stope performance, and recovery are critical to profitability and long-term value, and thus understanding and control of these key value drivers is essential, not only from the governance perspective, but also from the perspective of maximizing shareholder returns.In order to implement a system for metal accounting and reconciliation, it is important that the cause and effect of these value drivers is understood, and that a systematic control system be established.While a number of off-the-shelf solutions exist for this work, it is the contention of this paper that a fuE understanding of the metal flow, its variabEity, its underlying loss potential, and its control points is necessary before a systematic approach to reconcfliation can be undertaken.The paper also advocates that this approach should ensure that the reconciliation system clearly addresses the reconcfliation needs, within a consistent framework. Such a framework has been developed by AMIRA, in terms of a metal accounting code. However, up until now, this code has been aimed at plant processes, whereas this paper shows how the concept can be extended to cover the fuE reconcfliation requirements for a base metal mine.
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