Brazilian miner Ferrous Resources has been awarded by Brazil's State Council of Environmental Politics (COPAM) an installation license for a railway loading terminal at its Viga mine in Congonhas, Brazil to facilitate iron ore shipments.
The necessary infrastructure construction work at the mine will start immediately and is expected to be completed in 90 days.
The loading terminal at Viga will connect the mine with the MRS Logistics railroad that will transport Ferrous ore to the port, where Ferrous plans to export all of the ore produced in the second half of 2011. The capacity of this railway line is 18 million mt per year.
Ferrous has also obtained a license for operation to produce 864,000 mt of ore per year at its Santanense mine in Itatiauçu. Production at the mine will be increased to 5 million mt per year by 2015. Accordingly, the rate of production at the Santanense mine will eventually match both the Esperança and Viga mines.