Managing Mine Tailings Dams Safely

All information is valid as at 5 August 2024.

Introduction

The physical activities of extracting and processing ore to separate valuable metals and minerals often result in significant quantities of mineral residue material – including tailings.

As the world’s demand for many mined products has grown at an accelerating pace in recent decades, and as the grades of many orebodies have decreased as they have been mined over time, so the volumes of this residue material have increased.

There is a clear imperative to use all possible endeavours to ensure that Tailings Storage Facilities (TSFs) are managed to the highest standards of safety so that our industry can build and sustain trust with all our stakeholders. Anglo American employs best-practice standards and we manage our TSFs with the utmost care through rigorous governance and stewardship.

Transparency is central to how we approach engagement and our disclosure provides stakeholders with valuable information and an update on our ongoing progress across this key area of our operations.

Our tailings disclosure journey

In 2019, in response to the Investor Mining and Tailings Initiative (IMTSI) led by the Church of England Pensions Board and the Swedish Council on Ethics, Anglo American made disclosures in relation to identified tailing dams. In 2023, Anglo American voluntarily updated its 2019 disclosures. Although the data which was made available in response to the IMTSI is now outdated, we have, in the interest of transparency, taken the decision to retain it on this platform for the time being.

Since then, there have been significant developments in the context of tailings data disclosure including the introduction of the comprehensive Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM), an important step forward for the global mining industry. Anglo American played an active role in the multi-stakeholder process of developing the GISTM, which covers standards and practices over the entire tailings facility lifecycle and sets a high bar for the mining industry to achieve strong social, environmental and technical outcomes.

In 2022, we continued the work to align with the technical requirements of the GISTM and the social aspects that are already encompassed in our Social Way 3.0.

In August 2023, for tailings facilities with ‘extreme’ or ‘very high’ potential consequences, we disclosed our work and progress in line with other ICMM members. We are now, in 2024, releasing updates on our work and progress for those facilities.

In relation to other tailings facilities we will disclose our work and progress in August 2025 in line with our ICMM member commitments.

We are also incorporating tailings related data in our CDP water security scoring reports. To ensure integrated disclosure, the applicable data from those reports is now also being captured on this platform. This process does take time and we ask that you please bear with us as we make these updates.

Anglo American managed operations – summary by country

Of the *57 Processed mineral residue facilities currently managed by Anglo American, 27 are in active use, 22 are inactive or in care and maintenance, and 8 are closed or rehabilitated.