Exco Resources and FracSIS — a winning combination

Exco Resources is faced with a challenge that is common to many in the exploration and mining industry. How to best collaborate across a wide variety of sites, projects and disciplines with a group of people who use a range of different software packages and have varying levels of computer expertise? And how to do it without breaking the budget?

Exco Resources is based in Perth, Western Australia, and has over 10 projects in Queensland, South Africa and China. This level of exploration generates large amounts of data, in many different formats, that needs to be evaluated and acted upon in a timely fashion, across business and geoscientific disciplines.

FracSIS is the tool of choice at Exco to manage that interaction between disciplines for a number of reasons.

As Laurie Barnes, Resource Geologist, explains, "Everyone from Exploration Managers, site and office based Geologists and Alasdair Cooke, our Managing Director, use FracSIS to manage, view and discuss our projects. FracSIS is easy to learn and use. Plus it keeps all our professionals in touch with the reality of how the data is changing daily and where we can best focus our efforts."

Managers and senior geologists can add interpretations quickly and easily in FracSIS using the CAD tools, and then give the data back to technical staff to continue the work in other specialist packages. This method saves management time in learning specialist and complex software, while also saving the technical staff hours of duplicating effort between applications or entering data from printed plans.

Exco, through its use of FracSIS, achieves time and cost savings that can be seen in improved work flows and improved decisions.

Cloncurry Copper Project

A good example of the power of FracSIS for Exco has been in the assessment and acquisition of Great Australia in November 2003 as part of the Cloncurry Copper Project in Queensland.

To evaluate the potential for developing the copper sulphide resource, the  team at Exco obtained many types of data from all different sources, including geophysics, drillhole data, block models, pit models and existing resource data. With a deadline approaching and a significant investment opportunity on the table, the Exco team had to evaluate the data, investigate the sulphide resource and decide whether to go ahead with the project.

With only a short time to make a decision, Cooke and Barnes had to make the most of the data they were given.

They were able to rapidly import all the Great Australia data into FracSIS in 2 hours. "It would have taken us over several days to manipulate and clean the same data to bring it into the other specialist packages that we use" according to Barnes. "FracSIS saved us a lot of time better spent evaluating the project."

Once they had imported the data, they were able to visualise it quickly and easily in FracSIS' interactive 3D environment. "When evaluating these types of projects, you can't believe reports of estimated resources until you can see it for yourself. FracSIS allowed us to see the potential resource at Great Australia in a very short timeframe" Barnes said.

After evaluating the data and estimating the resource, Exco acquired the rights to Great Australia and a number of other mines in the Cloncurry region from Tennant Ltd. in December 2003.

Presenting with FracSIS

Exco also use FracSIS as part of their presentations to the exploration and finance communities. "Being able to present a cohesive picture of the mine within a 3D environment is crucial to being able to clearly present your idea to any audience" said Barnes.

"FracSIS allows our whole team to present at a quality and standard that the markets demand, in a way that does justice to the visual images and interpretative skills of our team, and in an environment that we understand."