Built by a geologist
Mining Stripping Ratio Calculator
Mining stripping ratio is the quantity of waste or overburden divided by the quantity of ore or pay material for one explicitly stated measurement basis and scope. If waste is 300 tonnes and ore is 100 tonnes, the mass stripping ratio is 3:1. Total material is waste plus ore, so material moved per unit of ore is the stripping ratio plus one, or 4:1 in that example. Waste is 75 percent of total material and ore is 25 percent. When total material and ore are known, derive waste by subtracting ore from total material before dividing by ore. Never divide total material directly by ore and label that result as the stripping ratio. A mass ratio compares tonnes, short tons, kilograms, or another common mass unit. A volume ratio compares cubic metres, cubic yards, cubic feet, or another common volume unit in the same condition. Bank, loose, swell-adjusted, and compacted volumes are not interchangeable. Volume and mass ratios are equal only when the relevant average waste and ore densities are equal. For density-adjusted mass arithmetic, multiply waste bank volume by representative waste density and ore bank volume by representative ore density, then divide waste mass by ore mass. Densities must use matching units and must represent the material domains, moisture convention, and volume condition. State whether a result applies to a bench, period, phase, pushback, cumulative schedule, or life-of-mine total. Periodic and cumulative ratios answer different planning questions. Keep definitions consistent for waste, ore, low-grade stockpile material, rehandle, pre-strip, and other movement categories. There is no universal good stripping ratio. A lower ratio can reduce material movement but does not prove that a deposit is economic, mineable, permitted, safe, or environmentally acceptable. Grade, recovery, dilution, ore loss, prices, royalties, mining and processing costs, haul profiles, slope design, water, infrastructure, capacity, sequence, capital, closure, taxes, discounting, uncertainty, and risk all matter. This calculator performs transparent arithmetic only. It does not calculate a break-even stripping ratio, optimize a pit, establish reserves or resources, choose a mining method, design slopes or waste facilities, build a schedule, estimate costs, or establish feasibility. Consequential mine planning requires a consistent block model, geotechnical and hydrogeolo