Vale

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On the go: In the wake of the collapse of the tailings dam in Brumadinho, Brazil, which killed at least 84 people and left hundreds missing, 96 institutional investors have been stirred into action.

In an urgent letter, investors, led by the Church of England Pensions Board, have given mining companies 45 days to provide full disclosure on tailings storage facilities under their control. It requests that companies publish the disclosure on their websites within 45 days and ensure that the disclosure is signed by the company’s chief executive or board chair.

The letter, sent on April 5 to 683 listed extractives companies by the CofE Pensions Board and the Swedish Council on Ethics for the AP Funds, is supported by 96 investors with $10.3tn (£7.9tn) in assets under management, including Aegon, Aviva and Hermes. The engagement is also supported by the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment.

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https://www.reuters.com/

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian miner Vale SA said on Monday it failed to obtain stability certificates for 13 dams under review following the rupture of another dam in January that killed hundreds, although its shares rose on strong global iron ore prices.

The world’s largest iron ore miner also disclosed in a securities filing on Monday that a court had frozen an additional 1 billion reais ($258.42 million) in assets over potential damages related to the evacuation of its Vargem Grande dam.

Despite the disclosures, Vale shares jumped to their highest point since the Jan. 25 disaster, rising 3.6 percent to 52.79 reais.

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https://www.reuters.com/

RIO DE JANEIRO/SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian miner Vale SA on Thursday estimated selling up to 75 million tonnes less iron ore this year, after several mines were halted following its second deadly dam burst in less than four years.

The estimate, which is 20 percent below its prior forecast, is the latest blow to Vale from the collapse at Brumadinho, which killed some 300 people and forced the world’s largest iron ore exporter to fire its chief executive officer earlier this month.

Chief Financial Officer Luciano Siani said in a call with analysts that under the most optimistic scenario, 2019 sales would decline about 50 million tonnes.

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https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – A group bringing together the world’s biggest listed miners on Wednesday said it was working with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and ethical investors to help agree a global standard for tailings dams.

The safety of dams used to store mining waste known as tailings became more high profile after the collapse of a Vale tailings dam in Brazil in January killed an estimated 300 people.

Vale and other major miners, including Rio Tinto, BHP and Glencore, are members of the industry body International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), which met in London on Wednesday to debate tailings safety.

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https://www.reuters.com/

PERTH, March 21 (Reuters) – China’s steel sector, and the imported iron ore upon which it relies, are currently locked in a struggle between largely bearish longer-term structural factors and short-term cyclical influences, some of which are bullish.

It’s not unusual for an industry to grapple with competing narratives, but for China, which produces half the world’s steel and consumes two-thirds of seaborne iron ore, how the issues are resolved will have a flow-on effect through other parts of the economy, such as manufacturing, mining and construction.

The other impact of the tug-of-war of factors is likely to be volatility in prices as market participants try to reconcile the short-term drivers with the longer-term trends.

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https://www.reuters.com/

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Executives at Vale SA, the world’s largest iron ore miner, quashed efforts by Brazilian authorities to audit one of the company’s mining dams months before it collapsed and killed over 300 people, a state prosecutor was quoted as saying by news website G1 on Wednesday.

William Garcia, a prosecutor in Minas Gerais where the January disaster occurred, told G1 his office had filed subpoenas with Vale last June to review safety documents regarding Vale’s dam.

But Vale’s lawyers responded in November arguing they had received positive reviews of the dam by an auditor the firm had hired, the German firm Tuv Sud, Garcia said.

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https://www.bloomberg.com/

A Brazilian court ordered Vale SA to halt production at another of its iron ore mines, further reducing the company’s output capacity after a deadly dam burst increased government scrutiny over its operations.

The Timbopeba mine in Minas Gerais state produces 12.8 million tons of iron ore per year, Vale said in a statement, adding that it will comply with the court decision. The judge also ordered the company to stop using the Doutor dam that receives tailings from the mine. A fine of 500,000 reais ($131,000) per day will be imposed in case of disobedience.

Since the Brumadinho dam accident that left more than 300 people dead or missing on Jan. 25, Vale has also been ordered to stop operations at its Brucutu mine in the same state.

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https://www.reuters.com/

TORONTO (Reuters) – Brazil’s mining minister on Tuesday defended iron ore miner Vale SA as vital to the country’s economy, even after prosecutors accused the company of pressuring auditors to suppress evidence that its Brumadinho dam was unstable, months before the dam collapsed in January, killing hundreds.

Minister of Mines and Energy Bento Albuquerque said Vale executives are likely to learn from the disaster, which killed more than 300 and sparked an outcry for tighter mining regulations.

The January disaster was the second deadly burst in less than four years in Brazil at a Vale-controlled tailings dam, a type of dam that stores the muddy detritus of the mining process.

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https://theecologist.org/

Jax Jacobsen is a mining and energy journalist, and a regular contributor to Mining Magazine. She has also written for Canadian Institute of Mining Magazine, Natural Resources Magazine, the Montreal Gazette, and other publications. In 2013-2016, she was S&P Global’s Canadian mining correspondent.

Brazil witnessed its worst ever mining disaster earlier this year, after Vale’s tailing dam in the Brazilian town of Brumadinho in Minas Gerais collapsed without warning.

Estimates tag the number of deaths at 142, while nearly 200 remain missing. Hundreds were evacuated this week near the dam area of another mine in Minas Gerais as a precaution.

This tailings dam collapse comes less than four years after another devastating tailings mine disaster destroyed the town of Samarco, also in Brazil, also managed by Vale (though in a joint partnership with BHP). The Samarco tailings dam failure killed 19, and caused widespread environmental destruction through the state of Minas Gerais.

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https://www.reuters.com/

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Brazilian iron ore miner Vale SA Chief Executive Fabio Schvartsman and several other senior executives resigned on Saturday in what the company described as a temporary move, after one of its mining dams burst in January, killing hundreds.

Vale said Schvartsman offered his resignation, which the board “immediately accepted” after state and federal prosecutors recommended their removal late on Friday.

The move comes slightly over a month after a tailings dam broke at Vale’s Corrego do Feijao mine in the interior Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, likely killing over 300 people and releasing massive amounts of toxic sludge.

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