Mine Closure & Liability

Mine Closure planning requires not only an in-depth understanding of the life of mine but also of the associated infrastructure and or items that will be affected by any form of a closure plan. ENVASS provides a value-adding service to capture, categorise and prioritise closure items that form the basis of financial provision.

Closure Cost and Liability Assessments have become one of the most important organisational risk management tools for the mining industry. It ultimately aims to determine the actual and or potential cost associated with scheduled and or unscheduled closure. ENVASS provides value-adding service by applying the South African DMRE guidelines, international standards and best practice guidelines, and or custom-made contractor rate calculation models to assess and report on liability at any point in time.

Annual Closure Cost updates are required as an administrative compliance report by the MPRDA. Annual Closure cost updates require that progressive mining and or progressive rehabilitation initiatives become contextualised so that liability intake or liability decrease is understood and controlled year on year. ENVASS provides a value-adding service through either a detailed itemisation and or a DMRE rules-based approach. ENVASS extends this service to align with the requirements of the GNR 1147 regulations and also ensure that closure initiatives are linked to risk assessments and relevant unit rates.

Closure objective setting ensures that closure plans become specific, measurable, achievable, and realistic. Closure objectives are closely linked to the relinquishment criteria and provide the basis upon which roles, responsibilities, and financial allocation are made. ENVASS provides a value-adding service whereby closure objectives are contextualised within environmental management plans.

GNR 1147 (Regulations pertaining to the Financial Provisioning for Prospecting, Exploration, Mining or Production Operations) are expected to come into effect in February 2024. Mining right holders, as defined by the regulation, will at this time be required to present an annual closure plan, a final closure plan as well as a closure risk assessment. ENVASS provides a value-adding service whereby the requirements of the GNR 1147 during this transitional period are aligned with requirements of the MPRDA closure guidelines, enabling the client to ascertain the potential impact that the GNR 1147 regulation could have on the extent of the existing financial closure provision.

The ENVASS (PMLU) process is intended to create opportunities to encourage the development of sustainable post‐closure options that use the mined land, and tenured area, in a way that meets sustainable ecological solutions. A process is followed whereby the vision, objectives, and subsequent inputs from stakeholders are used to derive action plans and a business case. The PMLU remains central to the closure vision of an operation.

In terms of best practice, also intrinsic to the requirements of the South African Financial provision regulations are mines required to conduct annual audits on rehabilitated land to determine progression and to re-contextualize risk and opportunity. The ENVASS group offers the auditing service through highly qualified and experienced mine closure specialists, able to align audit findings with concurrent, unscheduled and scheduled closure planning.