BHP Billiton, a 50 percent shareholder at Brazilian pellet producer Samarco, plans to spend about $260 million to decommission the company’s dam, it said this week in a document filing.
Samarco halted operations in November 2015, following a deadly iron ore dam burst, which killed 19 people. BHP Billiton said Samarco is currently “progressing” plans for what it called as the “accelerated decommissioning of its upstream tailings dams (at its Germano dam complex).”
“The accelerated timing is expected to result in a provision of approximately $260 million (BHP share), as Samarco is not currently expected to generate sufficient cash flows to fund the required decommissioning costs,” it said.
Despite not producing pellets since its halt in November 2015, Samarco reported sales volumes of 10,000 mt of pellets in December 2018.