Anglo American said on Friday that it had set out significant progress towards bringing its 12 tailings storage facilities (TSFs) that were currently within the two highest potential consequence categories into conformance with the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM).
In a statement, the group said the GISTM was the first global standard on tailings facility management and set a purposely high bar for the mining industry to attain – while integrating social, environmental, local economic, and technical considerations for every facility - the goal of zero harm to people and the environment.
Anglo American CEO Duncan Wanblad said: “We have made very significant progress towards conformance with the GISTM over the last three years, building upon our already high technical standards.
"We continue our prudent approach to align with a number of specific GISTM requirements, as well as the social and community aspects that are already encompassed in our comprehensive Social Way management system. We are addressing the few outstanding areas and have set out the work needed to get us there.“
Wanblad said said the industry had made it a clear ethical imperative to do everything possible to ensure that TSFs were managed to the highest standards as they worked together to build greater levels of trust with all their stakeholders.
“GISTM’s role in driving continuous improvement across the industry with full transparency is beyond doubt,” Wanblad said.
Anglo American said it played an active role in the multi-stakeholder process of developing the GISTM, which comprised six topic areas, 15 principles, and 77 auditable requirements for each facility, and covered standards and practices over the entire life cycle of a facility.
It said: “The few remaining requirements with which Anglo American is in partial conformance largely relate to the necessary sequencing of work and the need to carry out certain additional studies required by the GISTM to further strengthen our understanding of the holistic environmental effects of TSFs over their full life cycle.
"Anglo American also continues to enhance the safety and resilience of its facilities through the application of evolving best practice in relation to outcome-based principles in risk assessments.“
Anglo American said it was continuing to work towards conformance for its TSFs that were within the other three lower consequence categories by August 2025, in line with the commitment made by all ICMM member companies.
“Anglo American is confident in the integrity of its TSFs, which comply with regulatory requirements in the countries where they are located,” it said.
Following best practice at tailing dams is important.
Last year September South Africa witnessed a disaster at the Jagersfontein diamond mine, a mine not owned by Anglo.
The collapse of the Jagersfontein tailings dam in South Africa – 2022. Jagersfontein is a small mining town located in the Free State of South Africa, which on Sunday the 11th September 2022 was struck by a mudflow resulting from the failure of a tailings dam
People were killed, injured and several houses were destroyed and 103 severely damaged. At the time the mudflow ran a distance of about 9 kilometres with a front exceeding one kilometre in width.
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