Vale CEO Signals Disagreement With BHP Over Samarco
October 27 2016 - 10:22AM
Dow Jones News
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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