A Semi-Empirical Oil Sands Mine Pit Wall Design Update at the Muskeg River Mine

ABSTRACT: The Canadian Natural Muskeg River oil sands mine near Fort McMurray has conventionally used a 2D limit equilibrium approach to design pit walls. The mine has been in operation for over two decades, which has provided the opportunity to learn from the pit wall instrumentation data, bench-scale slides, and panel mining activities. Significant safety, practical, and economic benefits may be realized with optimized pit wall designs. Applying experience and learning, the pit wall design approach has evolved from focusing on 2D limit equilibrium methods to a semi-empirical approach that considers additional potential failure modes (e.g., bench block slides, rich ore flows, and adverse clay dips). This paper describes the updated pit wall design approach and recent performance results at the Muskeg River Mine.