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Chinese
mining company Sul Americana de Metais (SAM), a unit of China’s
Honbridge Holdings, is confident it will receive the necessary permits to
start up its US$ 2.1 billion iron ore project in Minas Gerais, its chief
executive said.
CEO
Jin Yongshi said he believed the Brazilian authorities will give the green
light, despite the hurdles that have emerged in the wake of two fatal
tailings dam disasters in Brazil in the last four years.
The
company has lowered the environmental impact of the mine and increased
operational security, he said in an interview.
With
a capacity to produce 27.5 million tons of iron ore per year, with a 66.2%
iron content, the project called Block 8 is planned in the north of Minas
Gerais, Brazil’s iron ore producing state where the two deadly dam
bursts occurred.
“We
have had problems in the industry in the past, but we cannot stop because
of that. We have to find solutions on how to make mining safer by learning
from the disasters,” he said.
Jin
said the company has been trying to develop the deposit for about 10
years, but obtaining licenses was delayed after the two dam failures in
Mariana and Brumadinho.
The
project had to undergo major changes and restructuring in this period to
incorporate innovations, including plans for the social and economic
development of the surrounding region.
To
date, the company has invested US$74 million in research and testing.
However, in a new setback last month, a court suspended environmental
licensing for the project after public prosecutors questioned the
authority of the state of Minas Gerais to carry out the licensing, arguing
it should be done by the federal environmental agency Ibama.
Prosecutors
also want Ibama to be in charge of licensing a 480-kilometer ore slurry
pipe to be built by another company, called Lotus Fortune Holding, to
transport output to Porto Sul on the Atlantic coast of Bahia state.
Two
dams are planned to receive the tailings, the larger one built by a
technique called center line, with a capacity to store 845 million cubic
meters of tailings, 17 times more than the Samarco dam, which broke up in
2015, in Mariana.
The
dams are necessary, since the ore found in the region has only 20% iron
content and the company plans to use wet processing to raise product
content to 66.2%.
Source:
Merco Press
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