About Rössing

Executive Summary

The year 2010 saw our business focused on two streams of activities: one stream on immediate and short-term activities that keep the mine running on a daily basis, while the other focused on expanding and extending our business as far into the future as possible.

Our priority is, as always, the health and safety of our employees – the foundation on which everything that we do is built.
Although no serious or life-threatening accidents occurred in 2010, our safety performance declined significantly in the first half of 2010. We immediately reviewed the causes and how to address them. Subsequently, we embarked upon a high profile safety campaign to re-focus the mindset of all our employees and contractors, making everyone even more aware of our vision to create an injury-free workplace where everyone goes home safely.

The current emphasis is on safety, although health and the environment also form a part of our objectives. The programme of correction began in September, and to date more than 400 employees and contractors have received training. While there are areas of improvement, we are not yet seeing the full translation of personal Zero Harm value commitments into expected actions in the workplace. We continue to focus on assisting leaders to have a visible presence, to lead by example and ensure that we have the organisational discipline to always meet our world-class standards. We are also continuing the workshop programme and aim to train every person working at Rössing by the end of 2011.

Planning, organisation and commitment are the basic building blocks of all work, and through our Zero Harm initiative, we are laying the foundations for all future growth and development at Rössing. At the same time, we are building pride in our achievements, which will be palpable when entering the gate or meeting someone who works here — employee or contractor.

The past few years have seen a rapid increase in uranium exploration activities in Namibia, and mining activities will continue to make significant and increasing contributions to the economy. As the third-largest uranium producer in the world, we lead the way in the mining and processing of uranium in Namibia, as we have done for the past 34 years. This, however, does not mean that we are complacent. Looking back over 2010, our activities were guided by the necessity to enhance our strength and secure our future.

We have real opportunities for growth on the horizon. To be ready and able to seize these opportunities, our operating capability and efficiency must reach new levels and our unit cost must be reduced.

We thus embarked upon a performance programme, Sustainable Performance Acceleration at Rössing (SPAR), midway through 2010, which is twinned with our Zero Harm initiative. The programme team, which includes experts from Rössing, Rio Tinto Energy, Rio Tinto Technical and Innovation and a consultancy firm, completed the diagnostic phase in late December 2010. Building upon this understanding of our current situation, the programme team will develop a plan for sustainable performance improvement in 2011.

This is an ambitious programme, with the key goal of transforming Rössing into the most productive, efficient and best run uranium mine in the world. It is also our aim to attract, develop and retain the best talent in the industry.
Our activities during 2010 are provided in detail in this report. The main activities are summarised as follows:

• We mined 52 million tonnes of rock (2009: 55 million tonnes)
• We produced 3,628 tonnes of uranium oxide (2009: 4,150 tonnes).
• Several activities focused on expanding our operations to extend the life of the mine for as long as possible, such as:
  • the Heap Leach project, which, once commissioned, will supplement the existing tank-leaching process to heighten the production levels;
  • extensive exploration and drilling activities, which will continue into 2011;
  • waste stripping, mainly in the open pit's north-western and southern areas, which will continue for the next three years, as well as in a satellite pit called SK4, situated about 3km from the current open pit.
• Expanding our business, we recruited the targeted number of employees; currently our staff complement totalled 1,592 permanent employees (2009: 1,415).
• We spent N$15.5 million on training and development programmes, benefiting 417 participants.
• Local enterprise development remains a focus of our drive to create sustainable communities; we concluded an innovative consulting contract with the Polytechnic of Namibia to assist in the development of selected SMEs, enabling them to grow and become independent and competitive players in the local economy.
• Another part of our commitment to the surrounding communities entailed spending N$23 million on activities of the Rössing Foundation, whose main focus is education.
• We spent a total of N$2.4 billion on purchasing goods and services to run our operations — 67 per cent from local businesses in the Erongo Region.
• As part of our community consultation and engagement commitment, the public participation process of the Social and Environmental Impact Assessment (SEIA) for our expansion project commenced in 2010.
• Our Product Stewardship programme is based on the recognised need to ensure that our product is produced, used and managed throughout its life cycle in a socially and environmentally responsible manner, to support goals of sustainable development and commercial goals of sustainable markets.

Our performance during 2010 will ensure that we deliver today, while securing a bright future tomorrow.