5. Estimated investment and operating costs

5.1 Investment costs

Two methods are possible: an analytical one involving the cost of each piece of equipment, and a global comparative one based on the cost of an existing workshop of known capacity.

• The first method, which is a very general Anglo-Saxon method applicable to all industrial processes, involves all costs relating to the various equipment and a factor f _i derived from statistical data. For fragmentation plants, both crushing and grinding, the average value of the f _i factor is around 3.2, due to the specific constraints of the mining industry. The investment cost C follows the relationship :