One year after the Mariana disaster, Samarco’s shareholders Vale and BHP Billiton are seeking at ways to put the Brazilian pellet producer back on track, as it could soon run out of cash.
A Vale’s executive commented during a mining congress in Rio that a mid-2017 restart for the struggling producer is feasible, however, BHP Billiton didn’t want to assure Samarco could restart anytime soon.
Samarco’s restart “isn’t assured,” said Dalla Valle, a commercial director at BHP.
“Technically, it can happen quite quickly but a number of approvals are needed. We’d need to look at what the costs would be. We can’t sign blank checks,” the executive told The Telegraph.
Adding some hope to Samarco, Clovis Torres, Vale’s director of human resources, said a mid-2017 restart for the pellets producer is “feasible.”
"It does not make sense that every time there is an accident, as a penalty, the company should cease to exist," Clovis Torres, Vale’s director of human resources, health and security, said during a mining congress.
A Brazilian minister attending a series of meetings in Tokyo confirmed Samarco could resume operations in 2017. According to Brazil’s miner and energy minister, Fernando Coelho Filho, the Brazilian government could “review” Samarco’s license, so it could resume activities in the next year.