BHP's Samarco civil claims negotiations extended again

A deadline for BHP Billiton's joint venture in Brazil to settle a civil claim of the bursting of the Samarco tailings dam in 2015 has been pushed back again.

A federal court in Brazil approved an additional 66 days for federal prosecutors to negotiate a settlement with Samarco Mineração, the joint venture between Vale and BHP Brasil, over the public civil claims related to the Samarco dam failure.

The extension will end on 25 June 2018.

"Until that time, the interim security arrangements and the current suspension of legal proceedings will remain in place," BHP said.

In December, BHP agreed to provide $181m in financial support to the Renova Foundation and Samarco until the end of June 2018, with $133m 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.

Last year, the Federal Prosecutors' Office filed criminal charges against Samarco Mineração, with a 20bn reais (roughly $6bn) asset freezing order application made by prosecutors, which was later denied by a federal court.

In its recent half-year results, BHP said that given the status of the matter, "it is not possible at this time to provide a range of possible outcomes or a reliable estimate of potential future exposures for BHP Billiton Brasil".