Cost-Benefit Evaluation of Mining Projects

This article describes the cost–benefit analysis of mining projects. Following a general introduction, the central part discusses six contentious topics: the community of interest, valuing the environment, second‐round effects, market modelling, estimating key mining data and treatment of risks. The penultimate section briefly discusses dealing with some special government requirements. The article concludes that the cost–benefit analysis approach is systematic and comprehensive. Where uncertainty exists, the weights attributed to unquantified impacts should be conceived within a cost–benefit analysis framework, rather than out of the subjective thoughts of decision‐makers.