RIO DE JANEIRO/SAO PAULO - Despite two major deadly mining disasters since 2015, Brazilian iron ore miner Vale SAhas not complied with a number of commitments signed with authorities to prevent a third disaster, federal prosecutor Edison Vitorelli told Reuters.
Some of the mines linked to the dams that Vitorelli’s team regard as unsafe are vital to Vale’s plans to recover lost iron ore production and grow capacity to 450 million tonnes per year, a level that would make it once again the world’s largest producer of the steel-making raw material. The task force requested earlier this month that Vale’s top executives in charge of safety operations be removed and for an external expert to be brought in to revamp the company’s strategy and culture around safety. A judge is expected to rule on the request in early October.
Their concerns come on top of a separate report by a United Nations’ expert on Wednesday who said Vale’s restoration projects following the dam disaster in 2015 are behind scheduled.Vale said it has extensive documentation to prove its compliance with commitments made to prosecutors which it will present to the court.
On Tuesday, the Brazilian miner said it plans to grow production capacity to 400 million tons of iron ore per year by 2022, up from 318 million today. For example, during a routine inspection by prosecutors in July 2019 at Itabira, auditors noticed cracks at the Itabiruçu dam. One of the cracks, they said in a written report, was 1.87-meter deep. The dam’s stability, moreover, was being monitored with equipment that produced inaccurate data or had a delay.
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