Samarco, a Brazilian-based pellet producer co-owned by Vale and BHP Billiton, has signed a conduct adjustment commitment term (TAC) with prosecutors to hire an independent body of auditors to monitor the company’s restart process. In a release this week, Samarco did not unveil an exact or estimated timeline for it to resume operations, as a restart depends on pending documents.
Samarco said the auditors would “closely” monitor an “eventual” restart. Besides the auditors, prosecutors would also follow up on the company’s environmental monitoring systems needed for a corrective operating license (LOC), a mandatory license for the pellets producer to resume operations.
Samarco plans to resume operations gradually, without upstream dams like the one that collapsed in 2015, killing 19 people. Samarco’s restart depends on the LOC, which is currently in analysis status by a Minas Gerais state environmental agency.