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Called Block 8, the project includes a 480-kilometer pipeline that will run from Minas Gerais to Ilhéus (BA), passing through 21 municipalities.
On Thursday, September 12, the government of Minas Gerais signed a protocol of intentions with Sul Americana de Metais (SAM), a subsidiary of the Chinese Honbridge Holdings, for the construction of a mining complex worth R$ 7,9 billion in the north of the state. Vale president and directors are indicted for homicide in Brumadinho CPI.
Called Block 8, the project includes a 480-kilometer pipeline that will go from the mining town of Grão Mogol to Ilhéus (BA), passing through 21 municipalities. With the construction of the pipeline, the total investment rises to R$ 9,1 billion.
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If it reaches full operation, Block 8 will have a production of 27 million tons of iron ore per year, slightly less than that of the Brucutu mine, owned by Vale, and similar to the total capacity foreseen in the Minas-Rio project, by Anglo, whose logistics also depend on a pipeline.
The deposits to be explored are in the municipalities of Grão Mogol and Padre Carvalho. The complex will have an ore concentration plant, water dams and dam with capacity to hold 845 million cubic meters of tailings.
To give you an idea of the proportion, Vale's dam at the Córrego do Feijão iron mine, in Brumadinho, had the capacity to store 12 million cubic meters of tailings. Its rupture, on January 25, released a wave of mud that killed 249 people and left 21 missing.
The mining part will be in charge of the environmental authority of Minas, while the pipeline, as it crosses the state line, will be licensed by Ibama. It will be built and operated by Lotus Brasil Comércio e Logística, a company independent from SAM.
Ibama rejected the project in 2016, at the time called Vale do Rio Pardo, for environmental unfeasibility. Gizelle Andrade, director of Relationship and Environment at SAM, says that the project was restructured in 2017 and is safe.
So far, US$ 74 million has been invested in studies and acquisition of mining rights. According to her, the dam no longer uses the upstream method – used in Brumadinho and Mariana and is now condemned – and will have a system capable of preventing infiltrations in the body of the dam.
The prior licensing process should be completed in February 2020. Thiago Toscano, president of the Minas Gerais Investment and Foreign Trade Promotion Agency, says he only sees benefits for the community. The expectation is that 1,2 direct jobs and revenue of BRL 4 billion per year will be generated at the mine alone, on which mining royalties will be paid.
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