Vale expects local pellet producer Samarco, a 50/50 JV between Vale and BHP Billiton, to restart operations by end-2016 or the beginning of 2017.
Vale’s investor relations director, Rogerio Nogueira, said the expected restart for Samarco should allow the pellet producer to comply with its financial obligations, including the BRL 4.4 billion settlement for the next three years reached by Samarco, Brazil’s government and the states of Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo.
The executive said the deal doesn’t protect Samarco from other potential lawsuits, but dismisses the BRL 20 billion public lawsuit filed by the Advocacia-Geral da União (AGU), the nation’s institution responsible for the exercise of public law at a federal level.
Considering just the deal reached with the federal and state parties, Nogueira estimated Vale could spend about BRL 10 billion by 2030. The Mariana disaster caused a 54.5 percent decline in Samarco’s pellet output in Q4, year-on-year, which reached 1.6 million mt.
On Thursday, Brazil’s public ministry (MPF), a body of public prosecutors, opposed the agreement reached by Brazil’s government and the states of Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo.
MPF joined the first meetings, which were held in order to define a settlement between the parties. However, it later gave up in negotiating the deal as it noticed too much concern about the company’s patrimony as opposed to the importance the affected communities and the environment should have in the case.