BHP Billiton to pay $181m for Brazil dam disaster

BHP Billiton has agreed to provide $181m in financial support to the Renova Foundation and Samarco until the end of June next year, following the dam failure in 2015.

The miner said $133m will be used to fund the Renova Foundation to undertake remediation and compensation programmes identified under the agreement between Samarco, Vale, BHP Brasil and the Brazilian authorities. This will be offset against the group's provision for the Samarco dam failure.

Meanwhile, $48m will be made available to Samarco. This includes a short-term facility of up to $42m to carry out ongoing repair works, maintain Samarco's facilities and support restart planning, and $6m to cover fees payable to experts appointed in connection with the remediation and compensation programmes.

Funds will be released to Samarco only as required, and subject to achievement of key milestones.

At 0910 GMT, the shares were down 0.2% to 1,465.55p.