The production of iron ore at Brazil’s Vale SA saw a sharp rise in the first quarter compared to that of 2020 according to the media. It was lifted by the ramp-up of several key mine complexes yet fell on a sequential basis. In the recent report, the company reported a quarterly production of 68.045 million tonnes that is 14.2 percent more when compared to the first quarter of the previous year but less than the fourth quarter by 19.5 percent.
The firm stated that the improvement in yearly terms was due in part to rising production at its mines in Timbopeba, Vargem Grande and Fabrica. After the dam collapse that happened in 2019 at a Vale-owned mine in the town of Brumadinho that killed 270 people, these complexes are said to have undergone important and significant safety upgrades. Adding to other factors that helped to buoy Vale’s iron ore output is a relatively dry period during January and the restart of Serra Leste Facility towards the end of 2020 that had been on halt since the Brumadinho disaster.
On the contrary, the scheduled maintenance was stopped at its S11D mine in northern Brazil. The regulatory restrictions at its Itabira mine and “habitual seasonality” weighed on the production compared with the quarter before this.
It is to note that investigations were carried out by the police of Rio de Janeiro after the recent allegations brought by Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz that Vale has been illegally concealing from its shareholders the actual conditions under which Steinmetz’s company BSGR was supposed to mine one of the world’s biggest iron ore deposits.