Brazil’s Vale (NYSE: VALE) has begun working on resuming operations at its $3 billion Onça Puma nickel mining complex, as the country’s Supreme Court suspended injunctions against the miner earlier this month.
Nickel mining at Onça Puma, in Brazil’s northern Pará state, has been halted since September 2017 as the company failed to undergo a requested environmental impact on local indigenous communities affected by pollution caused by the mine.
The complex, which also had to suspend nickel processing in June this year, produced a record 7,100 tonnes of nickel in the third quarter of 2017, up 29% compared with the prior three-month period and up 7.6% from the third quarter of 2016, Vale said at the time.
The world’s largest nickel producer has been in disagreement with the Xikrin and Kayapó tribes since 2012, when the Federal Prosecution Office (MPF) started a public civil action against Vale and the state of Pará.
The authority contended that operations at the nickel complex had contaminated the nearby Cateté River and that the state should not have granted Vale licences for the mine.
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