Brazilian miner Vale (NYSE:VALE) recently unveiled its third-quarter production and sales figures, showing a strong quarter for the company’s iron ore operations.
Vale’s iron ore fines production totaled 86.7 million tons in the third quarter, up 35.4% from the previous quarter. The increase was powered in part by the resumption of operations at Brucutu and the partial resumption of dry processing operations at the Vargem Grande Complex.
“Vale expects to resume the remaining production of approximately 50 Mt by 2021, as several milestones were achieved and others are ongoing, including the approval of trigger tests on the mines to resume dry processing operations and the authorization of trigger tests at the TFA Rail Terminal (Terminal Ferroviário de Andaime), an important step toward debottlenecking the Vargem Grande Complex logistics,” Vale said in its production release.
Vale expects to recover lost production stemming from the January tailings dam collapse in Brumadinho over the next two years. The miner expects to recover approximately 30 million tons of production “with 7 Mt coming from the resumption of the dry processing operations at the Vargem Grande Complex in 2019 and the remaining from Fábrica, Timbopeba dry processing operations and others.”
The remaining production is expected to return in 2021, mainly from wet processing operations at Timbopeba and Vargem Grande Complex.
Meanwhile, Vale’s pellet production reached 11.1 million tons in Q3, up 22.7% from Q2. Last month, Vale revised its pellets production guidance down to 43 million tons from previous guidance of 45 million tons.
Last month, the miner announced investment plans for the communities impacted by the fatal tailings dam collapse in January at its Corrego do Feijao mine.
The miner announced plans to invest R$190 million in the communities of Macacos, Barão de Cocais and Itabirito.
by Fouad Egbaria