Brazil’s development bank, BNDES, along with the country’s Research and Projects Funding Agency, Finep, approved 24 business plans and should provide a combined $235 million (BRL 737 million) in financing for innovative projects in mining.
The total funding is part of the first phase of the Inova Mineral initiate, which aims to stimulate innovative projects in mining as well as the development of high performance materials.
BNDES said most of the approved projects are focused on risk mitigation and environmental impacts in mining, such as the improvement of intelligent sensors aimed at monitoring dams and preventing disasters such as the collapse of Samarco’s iron ore waste dam in 2015, which killed 19 people.
Other approved projects include plans to recover and reuse mining waste and turn them into other products.
Gerdau was among the selected companies. BNDES did not disclose details about the Gerdau project, but said the steelmaker would be benefited through financing under the reimbursable method.