Diversified miners Anglo American, Sibanye-Stillwater and Glencore have revealed the progress they have made in conforming with the Global Industry Standard and Tailings Management (GISTM).

Anglo says it made marked progress in ensuring the conformance of its 12 tailings storage facilities (TSFs) within the two highest potential consequence categories with the GISTM.

The GISTM is the first global standard on tailings facility management and integrates social, environmental, local economic and technical considerations for every facility, towards the goal of zero harm.

As members of the International Council on Mining and Metals, Glencore, Sibanye and Anglo have committed to conform with the requirements of the GISTM by August 5 for all “very high” and “extreme" consequence TSFs, and by August 5, 2025, for all remaining TSFs.

Anglo has been building on its already high technical standards in respect of tailings management over the last three years, in recognition of the clear ethical imperative to ensure TSFs are managed responsibly.

The company itself played an active role in the multi-stakeholder process of drafting the GISTM.

Up to the release of the GISTM, Anglo abided by its own technical standard for TSF management since 2014, the scope of which went beyond existing industry standards and regulatory requirements.

The few remaining requirements with which Anglo is only in partial conformance relate to the necessary sequencing of work and the need to carry out certain additional studies, to understand the holistic environmental effects of TSFs over their full lifecycle.

“Anglo 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,” the company states.

Some of the company’s lower consequence category TSFs are also being worked on to ensure conformance with GISTM by August 2025.

Of the 62 TSFs managed by Anglo, 29 are in active use, 24 are inactive or on care and maintenance, and nine are closed or being rehabilitated. The majority of the TSFs use slurry deposition above ground, while 29 of them are stacked in a dewatered state of deposited in-pit.

In turn, Sibanye has 34 TSFs in South Africa, of which 19 are active, 12 are dormant and three are undergoing re-mining. Twenty-one of the company's TSFs are classified as very high or extreme consequence.

Sibanye has one TSF under detailed design and permitting as part of a tailings retreatment project, hence the company not making a declaration on its conformance to GISTM just yet.

Sibanye also has three very high or extreme consequence classified TSFs in the US, with another two yet to be classified owing to them being in the permitting process.

Two new TSFs are also planned for construction at Sibanye's operations in Finland, while one TSF is being hydraulically remined for reprocessing in Australia at the New Century operations.

Sibanye recently established a roadmap to identify the high-level gaps and actions required for conformance to GISTM.

Moreover, Glencore says it has taken a rigorous and technically robust approach to applying the GISTM, which goes beyond self-assessments and includes third party assurance.

The company also developed a Tailings Manager Academy, entered into a global agreement for satellite monitoring, undertook major engineering works at a number of TSFs and developed action plans to address identified gaps in its tailings management practices. 

Particularly, Glencore identified 15 TSFs with some gaps to conformance to GISTM and has developed detailed roadmaps to conformance in this regard.