Brazilian pellet producer Samarco, a 50/50 joint venture (JV) between Vale and BHP Billiton, expects to obtain pending licenses by 2019 in order to resume operations, the company told SteelOrbis on Wednesday.
Samarco declined to provide an exact timeline to get the licenses or resume operations, as they depend on the scrutiny of multiple authorities.
When questioned if Samarco could resume operations in 2019 if it received all pending licenses, a spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the company is focused on seeking the licenses first. Samarco has announced previous forecasts to resume operations, all of which failed.
Minas Gerais state environment authority Semad may grant pending licenses by the first half of 2019, SteelOrbis has learned. Samarco needs licensing for the Alegria Sul open pit, which will receive the company’s iron ore waste, in addition to a corrective operating license (COL) for the entire pellets complex.
“There are two processes currently in place,” a spokeswoman said. “We have the Alegria Sul open pit, which was once an iron ore mine, and the corrective operating license (COL). We still need to take iron out of Alegria Sul in order to prepare it to receive iron ore waste.”
The spokeswoman said Samarco intends to resume operations with an 7-8 million mt/year capacity, 26 percent its original capacity of 30.5 million mt/year.
Samarco said it lost a combined BRL 11.9 billion ($3.1 billion) in revenue in 2017 and 2018 due to the halt in activities in November 2015, following a deadly dam burst.