Abstract: recovery in the mineral processing circuit is affected by upstream operations. The upstream operations in a conventional copper mine include blasting, excavation, crushing, transportation, stockpile storage, as well as milling in semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) and ball mills. Varying the specific explosive energy may have a significant impact on the downstream comminution processes, and can maximize the cost savings between blasting and ball milling while achieving a sufficiently small P80 at the ball mill (Chung and Katsabanis, 2000; Nielson and Lownds, 1997; Nielsen and Malvik, 1999; Scott, 1996). P80 is the 80% passing size in the cumulative size distribution (both post-blast and post-mill fragmentation), and it is generally used as a representative size of the fragmentation in the hard-rock mining industry. However, for a mine with two or more ore types, these savings are difficult to estimate in absence of an ore-tracking method that can detect ore type as well as estimate fragment sizes (Kim and Kemeny, 2011). There are challenges to ore-tracking methods as well, resulting from thorough mixing of ore, for example at the stockpiles. Dissimilarities between ore types in terms of their blastability, crushability, and grindability add to the complexity of estimating the energy expenditure required to achieve a target P80 during milling. In summary, although it may be difficult, it is important for mine operators to distinguish between ore types so as to be able to calibrate the total explosives energy accordingly in order to maximize the total cost savings over a period of time. Tracking systems have been used in mines for other purposes in the past. A system based on a radio frequency identification (RFID) tracer in a plastic shell has been developed (Jansen et al., 2009). Although this tracer does not provide continuous tracking of all ore types in a mine, it could be used to track ore transported between stockpiles and bins. Similarly, RFID tracers have been used to track blast movements (La Rosa and Thornton, 2011). Continuous tracking already exists for all ore transported from pits to crushers (Modular Mining, 2014). This tracking is based on global positioning system (GPS) devices attached to the trucks hauling ore from shovel sites to the primary crushers. However, the tracking process does not continue through the comminution circuit and stockpiles. Thus, tracking ore movement from blast sites to the ball mills requires prediction and tagging of ore type of each individual fragment transported on trucks and conveyors. Tagging and prediction is useful in mines where the majority of fragments are over 1 inch A mine-to-mill economic analysis model and spectral imaging-based tracking system for a copper mine