Ensuring we are operationally resilient – SASA Water Management
Sasa mine is located in an area identified by the World Resources Institute as a water-stressed area. In addition, during CAML’s climate change scenario analysis work undertaken in 2022, water stress was identified as a key physical risk at Sasa.
Since 2021, the Sasa team has been developing a water management strategy to improve operational resilience. The strategy focuses on reducing Sasa’s dependence on surface water abstraction, with the aim of achieving a 75% reduction in surface water abstraction (versus 2020) by the end of 2026.
At Sasa, the largest consumer of surface water is the processing plant, which is estimated to consume over 90% of the total surface water that is typically abstracted.
Opportunities
Cut and Fill Project
Sasa is in the process of transitioning to paste fill mining methods with dry stack tailings (DST). Both of these technologies require the tailings to be dewatered. This water is a potential source for the flotation plant and would account for approximately 52% of the plant’s total needs.
Adit water use
As part of its mining operations, Sasa undertakes dewatering activities. The mine already captures in the order of 1,194 ML of these waters for use in the processing plant (equating to 34% of the operation’s needs). However, the ability to capture and re-use all of the adit water would significantly reduce Sasa’s reliance on surface waters and improve operational resilience and therefore reduce water stress as a physical risk. Sasa is currently designing the infrastructure required to allow the process plant to make full use of adit water.
It should be noted that adit water is influenced by seasonal variations.
Supporting initiatives
Several initiatives have already been undertaken or are planned for 2023. These include:
- Finalising Sasa’s water management strategy for the future
- The installation of flowmeters to improve data collection
- Establishing a water hierarchy that focuses on all water sources (surface water, ground water, produced water, contact water, treated water) to minimise the reliance on surface water abstraction.
SASA Surface Water Consumption (%)
UN SDG
We recognise our responsibility, as a contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, to identify and implement programmes to minimise energy usage and increase use of renewable energy where possible, as well as to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change throughout the value chain.
We have implemented a number of resource-use efficiency initiatives. In addition to this, we are focused on renewable energy acquisition or generation and fuel improvements. At Kounrad, we are constructing a solar farm to replace 16% of the project’s energy consumption with renewables.