Lawrence Devon Smith

2016

CIM Distinguished Lecturers

2015

CIM Fellowship

2003

Robert Elver Mineral Economics Award

Lawrence Devon Smith (Larry) is principal consultant at Lawrence, Devon, Smith and Associates. He is a mining engineer with over 40 years of experience in project engineering and economic evaluations for mining, metallurgical and industrial projects. He is considered an expert in mineral project evaluation, discount rates and risk assessment.

Distinguished Lecturer 2016-17

Lecture Abstract

Discount Rates and Risk in Long Life Projects

The presentation examines industry practice regarding the development and use of discount rates for Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) evaluations. It also examines the impact that discount rates have on project evaluations and raises questions about the use of risk adjusted discount rates (RADR) to assess risk in longlife projects. A simple approach is proposed for addressing both the time value of money and risk in DCF evaluations with respect to capital costs, operating costs, schedules, ramp-up, tonnes, grade and price.

CIM