By Benjamin Parkin and Paul Kiernan 

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Vale's chief executive on Thursday signaled that a rift was starting to emerge between the Brazilian mining giant and BHP Billiton Ltd., its partner in the Samarco joint venture that experienced a disastrous dam failure last year.

The disagreements center on waste disposal and debt at Samarco, Vale SA CEO Murilo Ferreira said in a conference call.

Samarco's operations have been halted since its Fundão dam holding mine waste suddenly collapsed last November, killing 19 people and causing what is considered Brazil's worst-ever environmental catastrophe.

Vale believes that Samarco's previous method of disposing mine waste, called tailings, in dams built according to the "upstream" method won't be viable in the future, Mr. Ferreira said.

"We don't think it would be viable to rebuild Fundão," he said.

Write to Paul Kiernan at paul.kiernan@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 27, 2016 10:07 ET (14:07 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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