KNOW

OUR PRIORITY
AREAS

MINE WASTE

We ensure a comprehensive, safe and responsible management of our mine waste, reducing to a minimum any risks to the health and safety of our personnel, the community and the environment.

By applying best practices in the design, operation and closure of tailings facilities, we reduce their potential environmental impacts, improve our accountability and guarantee the physical and chemical stability of these facilities at the end of their useful life, reincorporating these spaces into the natural landscape (wherever possible), monitoring their behavior.

Our mine waste management focuses on 2 pillars:
Management of tailings
Safe closure of mine waste facilities

For more information, see Management Approach

OUR COMMITMENTS

  • Minimize the operational and post-operational risks associated with our mine waste deposits.
  • Wherever possible, construct tailings dams using the downstream method and using borrow materials.
  • Have an operations, maintenance and monitoring manual, and a closure plan in place for all our active tailings impoundments.
  • Ongoing monitoring of tailings facilities, ensuring that all deposits have emergency response plans in place.
  • Share relevant information about our tailings facilities with all stakeholders.
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Highlights

MANAGEMENT APPROACH
Mining
Organizational Management

Mine waste requires proper management and final disposal, and also a safe closure of the tailings facilities, to prevent health and environmental risks and impacts. We focus on two pillars in this area:

Proper management and disposal
  • Tailings are the solid waste produced at our primary mineral separation and concentration operations. This waste must comply with strict technical requirement in terms of site selection for final disposal, construction, safe operation, monitoring to prevent risks, a closure plan that reintegrates the area into the natural landscape safely, and a post-closure plan that guarantees no impacts once the site has been abandoned.
  • The stability of the structure is prioritized in the design, to ensure the tailings dams are not affected by earthquakes or extraordinary weather events, among other risks. For this reason, the construction and maintenance include rainwater diversions and overflow channels at the larger dams.
  • For their closure, we use native plant species to reforest and we cover the area with natural material to prevent erosion from the wind and to reintegrate the area into the natural landscape.
Safe closure of mine waste deposits

Once they are abandoned, the mine waste deposits are subject to natural phenomena while they are adapting to the natural landscape that surrounds them. To ensure this occurs safely and successfully, we periodically calculate and adjust the closure costs for our operations, including dismantling some structures and stabilizing others, the reintegration into the natural landscape, and monitoring the quality of water at the sites we abandon.

The Community Development department implements the Sustainability Plan for the closure phase, which includes:

  • Implement the Community Development model with a Social Management Plan.
  • Encourage the neighbor communities to diversify their economic activities to reduce their vulnerability when the mine closes.
  • Maintain a reporting and response system for communities to share their grievances and expectations.
  • Assess the post-closure impacts on the areas of influence.
  • Transfer the social and sustainable legacy to the local communities and authorities.
Key indicators
Performance
Mine waste
Mine waste
719.3
million tons of mine waste generated in 2023.
Composition
Composition
72%
of mine waste is rock, which has a minimal impact on the environment.
Management
Compliance
Compliance
90%
of our facilities comply with internationally recognized safety factors.
Roles & Responsibilities

The organizational supervision of mine waste management is structured as follows:

Strategy and compliance
Operational supervision
  • Executive Leadership /

    Board of Directors

    Evaluates performance and progress on the corporate goals, targets and indicators, and investment projects related to mine waste. Identifies areas of opportunity, needs, risks and potential synergies.

    • Audit

      Committee

      Mechanism developed for the Board to monitor and promptly follow up on the management of our environmental, social and governance-related risks.

      • Sustainable Development Committee

        Monitors the performance of our actions, makes executive adjustments, assesses the risks and opportunities associated with, and submits strategic recommendations to the Board of Directors.

        • Sustainable Development Department

          Leads the design and implementation of projects, initiatives and actions, in close collaboration with the other divisions and relevant areas of the company.

          • Environmental

            Affairs Office

            Ensures compliance is met with applicable regulations; monitors the efficient mine waste management and the mine waste deposits operation.

        • Operations Department

          Participates in the Sustainable Development Committee; responsible for the mine waste management and for the mine waste deposits maintenance compliance.

          • Business units

            Each unit or operation is responsible for its own mine waste management, which is supervised by the Head of each operation.

Evaluation

Our General Tailings Systems Policy contains the following:

Alignment with international standards
Requirements
Specifications for operation manuals
Responsibilities
Assessments requirements
Alignment with international standards
Aligned with the ICMM Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (2020).
Requirements
Requirement that all our tailings systems have an operation, maintenance and monitoring manual, and also a closure plan.
Specifications for operation manuals
That the operation manuals must include a monitoring program, with regular reports indicating the level of compliance, the corrective maintenance performed, and also the main safety indicators.
Responsibilities
Definition of the roles tasked with the annual reviews of the structure, design, operation and documentation for the tailings systems.
Assessments requirements
Requirement of an operational and structural review each year of all facilities by a certified independent firm.
We also have a management plan for the mine waste we produce, aligned with the following standards:
MEXICO
  • Official Mexican Standard NOM-141-SEMARNAT-2003: provides the procedure for classifying tailings and the specifications and criteria for the classification and preparation of the site, project, construction, operation and post-operation of tailings dams.
  • Official Mexican Standard NOM-159-SEMARNAT-2011: sets the environmental protection requirements for copper leaching systems.

Contemporary