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Mining Environmental Accidents, Pollution, Tailing Dams and Abandoned Mines

Brazil Nearing Deal With Mining Companies Over Dam Collapse – by Paulo Trevisani and Paul Kiernan (Wall Street Journal – February 16, 2016)

http://www.wsj.com/

BRASÍLIA––Mining companies responsible for a disastrous dam collapse in November are expected to reach an agreement with Brazil’s government within days to cover public damages from the accident, people familiar with the negotiations said Monday.

The deal would settle a 20.2 billion real (about $5 billion) civil lawsuit filed by Brazil’s attorney general against miner Samarco Mineração SA and its parent companies, Vale SA and BHP Billiton Ltd., on Nov. 30. The agreement is intended to cover the social and environmental fallout from the Nov. 5 collapse of a dam holding back waste from Samarco’s iron-ore mines.

Among the requirements: rebuilding a village and restoring some 400 miles of rivers in the Rio Doce basin that were flooded with mud and heavy metals in what has been described as Brazil’s worst-ever environmental catastrophe.

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How the Coal Industry Flattened the Mountains of Appalachia – by the Editorial Board (New York Times – February 16, 2016)

http://www.nytimes.com/

As the destructive coal mining process known as mountaintop removal ebbs in Appalachia, it is leaving behind what amounts to its own grim field of tombstones: A grossly disfigured landscape pocked with decapitated mountains standing flat as mesas and inhospitable to forest restoration.

The blight is more than vertical, for millions of tons of slag waste have been bulldozed down into the surrounding countryside for more than 40 years. The rubble has clogged countless streams and waterways and devastated the Appalachian environment with pollutants, rerouting rain torrents through homes and hamlets below.

The destruction, shocking to anyone flying across the scarred mountain remains, has now been measured in all three dimensions in a survey by researchers at Duke University. It presents a timely reminder of what has been lost to King Coal’s furious bulldozing swaths across the mountains of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia.

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Commodity Markets Weighed Down By A New Factor, Environmental Metal – by Tim Treadgold (Forbes Magazine – February 4, 2016)

http://www.forbes.com/

In theory nickel, a steel-hardening metal, should be poised for a big price recovery as high-cost material is driven from a depressed market, but that’s before a new factor started to influence the business of nickel mining, environmental metal.

Similar in character to another non-market price driver, social metal, the new influence is entirely man made or, to be more specific, government made.

Social metal has been around for decades and is most evident in South American copper-mining countries where governments keep loss-making copper mines open as a way of maintaining employment to avoid social unrest.

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Brazil’s Vale Needs To Turn Its Iron Ore Into Pixie Dust Before Investors Really Get Excited – by Kenneth Rapoza (Forbes Magazine -February 4, 2016)

http://www.forbes.com/

Don’t believe the hype on raw materials companies today. Especially the China-bound miners like Brazil iron ore giant Vale . Thursday’s dubious 11.6% intraday rise in Vale shares will not stand. The same holds for rival company Rio Tinto and its Aussie business partner BHP Billiton .

All raw material plays rose on Thursday on a weaker dollar as the market considers a pauses in Fed rate hikes. While the stock has been beaten to smithereens over the last five years, losing nearly 90% of its share value, Vale’s business is in trouble.

Fitch said this week that the Vale and BHP joint venture, Samarco Mining, is heading to a default following last year’s rupturing of a dam. This will cost Vale and BHP hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees and clean up costs. Not to mention reputational damage. But the real kicker likes far far away, in China.

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8 companies that won’t have to meet Ontario’s new pollution limits – by Mike Crawley (CBC News Toronto – February 4, 2016)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/

Strict new emission rules coming in July, and more companies seeking exemptions

The provincial government will be bringing in strict new pollution standards this summer, but some of Ontario’s biggest polluters won’t be required to meet them.

CBC News has obtained the list of all companies that currently have multi-year exemptions from limits on such pollutants as sulphur dioxide and airborne particles.

The information shows the eight companies — including Ontario’s biggest mining company, its biggest smelter and the large steel plants — will be allowed to emit far more pollution than otherwise permitted by the province’s tough new air-quality standards, due to take effect July 1.

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Teck Metals expected to plead guilty to 15 pollution-related charges (CBC News British Columbia – February 1, 2016)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/

At least three appear related to 2014 chemical spill

B.C. mining giant Teck Metals is expected to plead guilty to more than a dozen charges related to pollution in the city of Trail, B.C. and the Columbia river system, according to the provincial court registry.

The company faces 15 charges in total, ranging from introducing business-related waste into the environment to depositing a harmful substance.

At least three of those charges appear to be connected to a 2014 chemical spill near Trail in which up to 25,000 litres of sodium hydroxide flowed from Teck’s smelter into a sewer line, eventually discharging into the Columbia River.

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Bauxite prices boosted by temporary ban on mining in Malaysia – by (Strait Times/Bloomberg – January 26, 2016)

http://www.straitstimes.com/asia

KUALA LUMPUR (BLOOMBERG) – Bauxite mining in Malaysia went on a tear after neighbouring Indonesia banned exports, transforming an industry that hardly existed until 2013 into China’s biggest supplier.

In September alone, China bought a record 3.7 million metric tonnes of Malaysian aluminum-rich bauxite. It was a US$170.8 million (S$244.3 million) windfall for the oil palm-covered hills in eastern Pahang state, where dozens of companies have rushed in, paying smallholder-farmers for their land to be dug up.

Now, chunks of farmland resemble moonscapes of bauxite quarries and dusty rock piles, which some residents, including Pahang royalty, say have polluted the environment. In response, the government halted mining on Jan 15, starting a three-month moratorium to gain control over an industry that has exposed gaps in Malaysia’s mining laws.

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Samarco sensors gave warnings well before Brazil damburst: Globo – by Jeb Blount and Brad Haynes (Reuters U.S. – January 25, 2016)

http://www.reuters.com/

RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazilian iron ore miner Samarco Mineração SA received serious danger warnings from ground sensors in 2014 and 2015, before a deadly dam burst last November that caused widespread environmental destruction, Globo TV’s Fantastico news magazine said on Sunday.

The alerts, from probes driven deep into the dam’s structure to detect ground moisture and stability, reached as high as “emergency” levels, Fantastico said, citing Samarco-commissioned engineering studies provided to prosecutors investigating the case. The damburst is considered by many to be the worst environmental disaster in Brazil’s history.

Samarco, a 50-50 joint venture between Brazil’s Vale SA and Australia’s BHP Billiton Ltd, is in talks with Brazilian federal and state prosecutors and environmental agencies to settle a 20 billion real ($5 billion) public lawsuit.

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Vale Port Halt Spurs Iron Rally Amid Trade Disruption Fears – by Yasmine Batista and Jasmine Ng (Bloomberg News – January 22, 2016)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The global iron ore trade may be disrupted after Vale SA, the largest producer, was ordered by a Brazilian court to temporarily close one of its main ports following alleged environmental breaches. Prices of the raw material gained along with miners’ shares.

The court in Brazil’s Espirito Santo state ordered a halt to export and import activities through Tubarao after elevated levels of iron ore and coal dust were detected.

Vale received the news from federal police “with surprise” and will use “all appropriate legal measures to ensure the re-establishment of its activities,” its said in a statement Thursday.

Iron ore has plunged over the past three years as the world’s top producers including Vale and rivals BHP Billiton Ltd. and Rio Tinto Group in Australia boosted low-cost supply, spurring a glut just as China’s growth cooled.

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BHP Billiton’s Samarco nears $7b deal on Brazil dam disaster – by John Kehoe (Australian Financial Review – January 23, 2016)

http://www.afr.com/

BHP Billiton’s stricken Samarco iron ore joint venture is nearing a $7 billion settlement with the Brazilian government for environmental and community damages caused by a deadly dam disaster last year, the country’s attorney general said.

Talks had “advanced significantly” and a deal could be reached by early February, Attorney General Luis Inacio Adams told reporters after representatives from Samarco and the government met on Thursday, Reuters reported.

Under the preliminary plan still under negotiation, Samarco would be given up to 10 years to pay the 20 billion reais fine and need to address 38 requirements.

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Brazil court orders closure of Vale’s Tubarão iron ore port – by Jeb Blount and Marta Nogueira (Reuters U.S. – January 21, 2016)

http://www.reuters.com/

RIO DE JANEIRO – A Brazilian federal court on Thursday ordered the suspension of activities at Vale SA’s Port of Tubarão because of pollution concerns, halting the world’s largest iron ore exporter’s ability to ship more than a third of its output.

The ruling by the court in Vitoria was made as part of a police investigation at the giant man-made port as Vale comes under increasing pressure over its environmental record in Brazil after a dam burst at a mine run by its Samarco joint venture in October, killing at least 17 people.

The court order paralyzed imports and exports at one of the world’s most important iron ore terminals. Its docks loaded 82.5 million tonnes of iron ore destined for steelmakers around the world in the first nine months of 2015, Vale said.

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Bauxite in Malaysia: The environmental cost of mining (BBC News – January 19, 2016)

http://www.bbc.com/

Bauxite mining has become a controversial political issue in Malaysia. As the government implements a temporary ban on extracting the aluminium ore, BBC South-East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head visits the most-affected area.

Amid the monotonous dark green lines of Malaysia’s endless palm oil plantations, there are now vivid red gashes in the hills behind the east coast town of Kuantan. These have appeared only in the past 18 months, as a frenzy of open-cast bauxite mining gripped Pahang province.

Tonnes of bauxite are being transported out of the region. It is the world’s main source of aluminium so is vital for the construction of everything from airplanes to saucepans and cooking foil.

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Samarco Warned of Problems at Dam, Engineer Says – by Paul Kiernan (Wall Street Journal – January 17, 2016)

http://www.wsj.com/

RIO DE JANEIRO—Brazilian mining firm Samarco Mineração SA was alerted to “severe” structural problems in one of its dams a year before it collapsed but didn’t take appropriate measures to fix them, an engineer who worked on the dam said.

Dam engineer Joaquim Pimenta de Ávila said he was consulting for Samarco when, in September 2014, he inspected a crack in its Fundão waste-storage facility. He believed it indicated the beginning of a break and said he recommended that Samarco step up monitoring and reinforce the Fundão dam with a buttress.

About 14 months later, the dam collapsed, releasing an avalanche of sludge that buried a rural village, killed at least 17 people and traveled more than 400 miles.

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Brazil Alleges Environmental Crimes in Response to Fundão Dam Collapse – by Paul Kiernan (Wall Street Journal – January 14, 2016)

http://www.wsj.com/

RIO DE JANEIRO—Brazil’s Federal Police have accused seven people and three companies, including mining giant Vale SA and its joint-venture Samarco Mineração SA, of environmental crimes in response to a major dam collapse in November.

The move, which has no exact equivalent in the U.S. legal system, will trigger the beginning of a deeper investigation by police. It typically represents a step toward formal charges, which in Brazil can only be filed by prosecutors, often after police have presented their findings.

The accusations mark the latest response by Brazilian authorities to what some have called the country’s worst-ever environmental disaster. On Nov. 5, Samarco’s Fundão tailings dam suddenly collapsed, releasing a flood of sludge that buried rural villages, killed 19 people and polluted more than 400 miles of the Rio Doce basin.

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Brazil mine disaster: Samarco downgrades Rio Doce waste levels – by Barry Fitzgerald (The Australian – January 9, 2016)

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

Satellite imagery has prompted the BHP Billiton and Vale-owned Samarco to claim that the volume of waste material released into the Rio Doce river system when its tailings dam in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state collapsed is less than first thought.

Initial reports after the devastating November collapse put the volume of tailings (a non-toxic mix of water, silica, fine iron ore and manganese) at more than 50 million cubic metres. That has now been downgraded to about 32 million cubic metres.

The lower figure nevertheless represents one of the biggest ever tailings dam failures. It was also one of the most deadly, with 17 people killed and two still listed as missing.

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