Anglo American said on Friday it is ready to resume iron ore production at its Minas-Rio site in Brazil, following incidents in a slurry pipeline connecting two states. The incidents, which were reported on March 12 and March 29 2018 at an Anglo’s 529-kmlong (328-mile-long) pellet feed-transporting slurry pipeline, halted the company’s iron ore production.
For a while after the incidents, Anglo had about 700,000 mt of iron ore, but it ran out of inventory, and tried to re-negotiate contracts. Anglo said on Friday it obtained all permits to resume iron ore production.
The company did not release a specific date to resume production, but said it is preparing to restart following “extensive and detailed technical inspections” of the slurry pipeline, as well as preventive repairs in the structure.
Additionally, Anglo reduced the deadline it set for inspecting the slurry pipeline as a way to prevent further incidents from five years to two years.
Anglo provisionally laid off workers, and redirected some of them to other Anglo American producing sites in Brazil, including in other Minas-Rio-related projects, such as phase 3.
“Anglo American expects the restart of activities to increase output to 1.2 million/month,” CEO Mark Cutifani said. The company expects to produce about 16-19 million mt/year of iron ore in 2019. The forecast assumes all licenses for phase 3 will be granted.
At phase 3, Anglo expects to obtain the required operating licenses for the operation to access the full range of run-of-mine ore grades and target the operation’s nameplate capacity of 26.5 million mt of the commodity per year.