BHP announces restart of some operations at Samarco

BHP said on Thursday that its Samarco Mineração joint venture with Vale had met the licensing requirements to restart operations at its Germano complex in Minas Gerais and its Ubu complex in Espírito Santo, Brazil, and had commenced iron ore pellet production.

The FTSE 100 company said operations were suspended following the failure of the Fundão dam on 5 November 2015.

Samarco's gradual restart of operations incorporated concentrator three at the Germano complex and pelletising plant four at Ubu, as well as a new system of tailings disposal combining a confined pit and tailings filtering system for dry stacking.

Independent tests had been carried out on Samarco's preparations for a safe restart of operations, BHP said.

Samarco expects initially to produce about eight million tonnes of iron ore pellets per annum.

“The extensive work undertaken by the Renova Foundation to remediate and compensate for the damages of the failure of the Fundão dam in 2015 continues, and BHP Billiton Brasil continues to support Renova in its work,” the board said in its statement.

“By November 2020, Renova had spent approximately BRL 10.7bn (£1.51bn) on its remediation and compensation programmes.”

Around BRL 3.1bn had been paid in indemnities and emergency financial aid to approximately 325,000 people, the company added.

BHP Billiton Brasil and Vale each hold a 50% interest in Samarco.

At 0946 GMT, shares in BHP Group were down 0.23% at 1,961.4p.