Optimal control of natural resources in mining industry

The paper focuses on the optimal control of natural resources in mining industry. The purpose is to propose an optimal extraction series of these resources during the lifetime of the Mine’s maintenance. Following the proposed optimal control model, a sensitivity analysis has been performed that includes the interest rate impact on the optimal solution. This study shows that the increasing of the interest rate stimulates faster extraction of the resources. The discounting factor induces that the resource has to be extracted faster but this effect is counterbalanced by the diminishing returns of the annual cash flow. At higher parameters of “alpha” close to one of the power function about 80% from the whole resource will be extracted during the first 4 years of object/mine maintenance. An existence of unique positive root with respect to return of investment has been proposed and proved by two ways: by the “method of chords” and by using specialized software.