Rehabilitation & closure

Our approach to closure management seeks to ensure that our activities minimise adverse impacts on people, the environment and broader society.

Vital to the success of our operations, the land we mine is a borrowed resource that is shared with the communities that neighbour our mines. As its steward, we recognise that we have a responsibility to effectively rehabilitate the sites we have disturbed to an agreed and acceptable level of land use.

Our approach to integrated closure management is mandated in the Mine Closure Planning Standard, which sets a benchmark across our operations and guides the business in identifying and managing current and future risks and liabilities.

The standard stipulates that closure planning must be undertaken in consultation with stakeholders and is aligned with the ICMM’s Integrated Mine Closure Good Practice Guide 2019, which considers environmental, social and economic aspects of mine closure as part of a balanced closure approach. In addition, we use the ICMM Closure Maturity Framework to ensure that closure planning is incorporated, reviewed and improved at every stage of a mine’s life cycle.

Each operation is required to develop site-specific closure plans that adhere to the Group’s commitments and national regulatory requirements. These plans include social transition planning to minimise adverse impacts and maximise opportunities to create self-sustaining communities through alternative livelihood initiatives and socio-economic development programmes.

Using a risk-based process to identify closure priorities, we expect each operation to incorporate closure studies, technical designs and rehabilitation trials in annual budgets.

All our operations have temporary closure plans (care and maintenance plans) in place for sudden suspension of operations due to issues such as declining commodity prices, rising costs, government policy changes or seismic events. We have also implemented a variety of financial instruments/assurance, including accounting provisions, escrow accounts and bank/insurance guarantees for mine closure that comply with the legislative frameworks of the countries where we operate.

Policies and standards

Group Standard: Closure Planning English, pdf
Group Policy: Operations and Mineral Resource Development English, pdf Español, pdf Português, pdf Français, pdf Arabic, pdf

For further information, refer to Sustainability Report 2024: Responsible rehabilitation and closure planning

Performance in 2024

Rehabilitation liabilities per region ($m)

Total amount of land disturbed and rehabilitated (ha)

How AngloGold Ashanti integrates mine closure planning throughout the mine life cycle:

Exploration phase:

Developing a plan and programme for cessation and closure of exploration activities in a manner that complies with local laws and AngloGold Ashanti’s mine closure planning standard.

Project phase

Developing conceptual closure plans and cost estimates for all projects and including them in project feasibility studies, designs and evaluations.

Operational phase:

Developing and periodically updating mine closure plans and cost estimates with increasing levels of detail and confidence over the operational phase as part of the business planning process. Closure plan updates take into account operational conditions, planning and regulatory requirements as well as advances in technology and international industry good practice. Concurrent rehabilitation, which is carried out while a mine is still operational, is a good practice that serves to decrease the final rehabilitation and closure work as well as the ultimate liability.

Closure phase:

Implementing the final closure plan starting at cessastion of operations through a period of decommissioning, dismantling and rehabilitation until management of the site is largely limited to monitoring and maintenance.