Mine site rehabilitation and closure

All mining operations eventually cease. For AngloGold Ashanti, an integral aspect of operating its mines is ongoing mine closure planning, together with the associated estimates of liability costs and the assurance of adequate financial provisions to cover these costs. An estimate of future liabilities is provided in the provisions note to the annual financial statements, note 29.

In terms of its Environmental Policy, the company is committed to ensuring that financial resources are available to meet its reclamation and environmental obligations. One of the company's values is that “the communities and societies in which we operate will be better off for AngloGold Ashanti having been there”. Through its membership of the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), the company is committed to seeking continual improvement of its environmental performance, in particular by doing the following:

• Rehabilitating land disturbed or occupied by operations in accordance with appropriate post-mining land uses;
• Providing for the safe storage and disposal of residual waste and process residues; and
• Designing and planning all operations so that adequate resources are available to meet their closure requirements.

The evaluation of new projects considers closure planning and the associated costs in determining the economic feasibility of the project.

For many of the older mines, closure planning and the evaluation of environmental liabilities is a more complex process. This is particularly the case in Brazil, Ghana and South Africa, where many of the long-life operations present environmental legacies that may have developed over a century or more.

Closure plans are typically reviewed and updated annually and take into account operational conditions, planning and legislative requirements, international protocols, technological developments and advances in good practice. ICMM published an integrated closure planning toolkit during 2008, and the company prepared a draft internal standard to incorporate this good practice approach. At the time of writing, consultants are assisting in finalising the standard.

A particular challenge is concurrent rehabilitation, which is carried out while a mine is still operating. This practice serves to reduce the current liability and reduces the final rehabilitation and closure work that must be undertaken, but has the potential to sterilise reserves, which the company might wish to exploit should conditions, such as the gold price, change.

An assessment of closure liabilities is undertaken on an annual basis. Increasingly, these liabilities are reviewed and assured by independent third parties.