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Bloomberg Industries says Vale’s share of the global seaborne iron-ore market has declined from 28% in the first half of 2011 to 26% for the same period of this year.
RENO (MINEWEB) – Vale has reported production declines in iron ore, pellets, manganese, copper, potash and phosphate rock for the first nine months of this year.
While the Brazilian mega-miner’s coal output increased a record 144.4% during the period, pellet output was up 3.8% and nickel production stayed flat.
For the first nine months of this year, Vale reported iron ore production of 234.5 million metric tons, a 2.2% drop over the 240 million metric tons of production reported during the first nine months of 2011.
“At Carajas we have not been able to match last year’s performance,” said Vale. “Issues with environmental permitting led to the continuation of mining in some older pits, which has entailed lower productivity, lower Fe content and higher costs.”
“Current performance is definitely not consistent with the high quality of our assets and corrective measures are underway,” the company said in its 3Q12 production report.