A version of this article was first published in PayDirt Magazine, August 2026.
Often getting a new mine to operate at nameplate capacity post commissioning can be notoriously difficult – even with well-designed process plants. According to McKinsey, just 1-in-5 mines can do it.[1] More likely, the process will take years. Indeed, research by RBC Capital Markets found that it takes 10 quarters (that’s two and a half years) for the average new mine to achieve designed throughput levels on a steady-state basis (longer for larger mines).[2]
The implications can be massive. Slow ramp ups quietly destroy promised NPV through lost production, higher operating costs and unplanned interventions. RBC’s study also revealed a 60 percent gap in share prices between those mines that ramp up on time versus those that don’t.
If you’ve been in the mining industry for any length of time, none of this will come as a great surprise. Most experienced mine owners are resigned to the idea that ramp up may be slow – many go into the process knowing it could take upwards of a year. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Even when things don’t go exactly as planned, getting to nameplate should take months, not years.
To be clear – the reasons that mines fail to achieve nameplate on commissioning are varied and complex. Rarely is it the ‘known knowns’ (to quote the late Donald Rumsfeld) that experienced engineers are trained to spot and mitigate. More often, it’s the ‘known unknowns’ that create the greatest challenges: issues that may only become visible through additional targeted testwork, research, building a demonstration plant or sustained early operational support.
Do you know your known unknowns?
I’ve spent decades helping new and operating mines get their assets to nameplate capacity. While I’ve learned that no two situations are ever the same, here are some known unknowns I’ve encountered:
- Corrosion. I worked in a plant where the slurry was preheated through a series of towers with interconnected piping. SAF2507 duplex stainless-steel pipes were installed and everything looked good on paper. However, heat affected zone corrosion started to set in. Eventually piping had to be replaced with titanium at a cost of many millions of dollars.
- Scale. I’ve seen numerous process plants experience significant loss of productivity and throughput due to scaling within piping, vessels and agitators. In many cases, scale can be managed through modifications – changing the order of the reagent addition, for example, or by modifying the agitation. Like corrosion, scaling invariably never shows up at commissioning but once it does occur, the impact compounds quickly.
- Product impurities. Unanticipated impurities can affect all metallurgical processes, impacting final product quality and increasing the cost of impurity removal. Impurities can often take months to build up within a process before they finally appear in the product. Once they do, mine operators will need to move quickly to resolve the root cause, which may require additional impurity removal equipment and associated CAPEX and OPEX.
- Ore variability and operating envelope. In the first 6 to 18 months after commissioning, plants often encounter ore feed conditions that were not fully represented during testwork or design. Harder ore, clays, changing mineralogy and shifts in ore or water chemistry can expose constraints across grinding, flotation, leaching, materials handling or tailings including higher wear rates in critical equipment. These may first appear as operating problems to be managed but often require additional CAPEX and OPEX to resolve.
Three steps to getting to nameplate faster
Without committing to large-scale and lengthy demonstration plants, few of these known unknowns can be identified prior to commissioning. They take time to manifest and, by the time they do, the project team may have demobilised, the engineering partner may no longer be involved, and your operating team is left to identify, diagnose and solve problems.
That’s often where we come in. At Ausenco, we are frequently asked to provide mine owners and operators with a ‘second set of eyes’ to help them identify the known unknowns before they materially impact the ramp-up to nameplate capacity. For existing operations, this can mean coming in after the original project team has moved on to independently review the flowsheet, operating data, plant constraints and improvement options.
What we have found is that there are three things that enable mine owners and operators to get to nameplate faster.
- Rapid identification: The longer it takes to identify the bottleneck or problem root cause, the greater the impact on your NPV and production. Clear, written Problem Statements are essential when an emerging bottleneck threatens the planned ramp-up to full production. The earlier these issues are defined, the faster the right expertise can be brought in.
- Smart optioneering: Nobody wants to invest more capital post-commissioning. Once a Problem Statement has been defined, the trade-offs required to solve the issue should be explored quickly. Ausenco can provide additional resources to support this work.
- Experienced execution: Once the preferred solution is defined, operations teams are often balancing day-to-day production demands with limited time to implement changes quickly and effectively. Tapping into additional professionals with deep execution experience can deliver timely implementation while allowing the site team to focus on safe, stable operations.
Whether you are planning a new plant, approaching handover or trying to unlock nameplate performance at an existing operation, the principle is the same: the earlier the right engineering expertise is involved, the more value can be generated.
Bringing Ausenco in during study, design or delivery can help set the plant up for a faster, more reliable ramp-up. Extending that support beyond handover, with process, mechanical, controls and other discipline specialists close to the operating team through the first 6 to 18 months, can help identify emerging constraints early, translate operating data into practical fixes, and support the path to stable nameplate performance.
Getting to nameplate faster means keeping the right expertise close after handover until the known unknowns are understood, solved and under control.
[1]Optimizing mining feasibility studies: The $100 billion opportunity