38 shifted, the value increased further because the mine plan, processing capacity and recovery pathways became better aligned with the new material flows created by IPM. Importantly, the data should be interpreted as a relative comparison rather than a universal forecast. Because the conventional base case is negative, percentage uplift values must be presented carefully. The main message is that ILR can move a marginal conventional case into positive value, while the combined ILR + IMR configuration can materially change the project economics by increasing recoverable value and improving the use of mining and processing capacity. 4. CONCLUSIONS & FURTHER WORK This study established a modelling capability to evaluate the impact of IPM technologies within underground mine planning and project evaluation. The framework enabled conventional mining to be compared with hybrid configurations incorporating ILR and IMR, capturing their effects on stope selection, material routing, processing requirements, recovery pathways, backfill interactions and project value. The case study demonstrated that ILR and IMR should be evaluated as system-level changes to the mine-to-process value chain rather than as isolated technologies. ILR improved project value by enabling selective upgrading of suitable material before surface processing, while IMR created an additional recovery pathway for lower-grade, residual or fragmented material. Together, these technologies increased the number of economically extractable stopes, diversified copper production sources and improved resource utilisation over the life of mine. A key conclusion was that the greatest value of IPM was achieved when mining, processing, recovery and backfill systems were designed as an integrated whole. The results indicated that project value was not driven only by individual technology performance, but by the ability to reconfigure material flows, manage processing constraints and align recovery pathways with the characteristics of the orebody. In this sense, ILR and IMR can provide practical transition pathways for conventional underground mining operations, capturing part of the IPM value proposition without requiring the full geological and hydrogeological conditions needed for ISR. 4.1 Further work The results should be interpreted as indicative of potential value and key sensitivities rather than feasibility-level forecasts. Further validation is required to confirm technology performance, refine cost assumptions, quantify environmental impacts and assess operational readiness. Recommended further work to de-risk IPM implementation includes: • Validating the methodology on an alternative block model with different geometry and grade profile;
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