Tag Archives: Brazil

MACA exits Brazil, prepares for more FQM Ravensthorpe work

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Contract miner, MACA Ltd, says it will cease operations in Brazil, effective January 2020, following the early termination of a contract at the Antas copper mine.

The contract, due to conclude in 2020, was with AVB Mineracao Ltda, a subsidiary of OZ Minerals, which announced back in mid-2019 that it planned to close the Antas open pit (pictured) in 2021. The reduction in the work in hand (WIH) position as a result of the early termination will be around A$8 million ($5.5 million), the company said.

At the same time as announcing this news, MACA said its mining division had received a letter of intent (LOI) from First Quantum Minerals to carry out works at the Tamarine limestone quarry, in Western Australia, including mining, crushing and screening of limestone over a three-year period. This contract was worth around A$20 million over that timeframe, MACA said.

The LOI follows the Ravensthorpe contract award with First Quantum that was announced November 20, 2019. MACA said works were expected to start in February utilising existing crushing equipment.

In Brazil, MACA said it would retain ownership of the majority of the plant and equipment currently utilised at the Antas copper mine, in Para state, northern Brazil, and would dispose of assets that are not redeployed to other operations.

“It is expected there will be a non-cash impairment related to the cessation of operations in Brazil of approximately A$2 million,” MACA said. “In addition, there are unrealised forex losses that will be triggered upon closure of the subsidiary, of approximately A$5 million based on current exchange rates.”

Profit from ordinary operations was not expected to be impacted as a result of the closure given the recent financial performance of the contract, MACA added.

WIH attributable to MACA as at January 31, 2020 is expected to be A$2.3 billion across all business units, MACA said, with current guidance for financial year 2020 (to end-June) remaining at A$770 million revenue and EBITDA from operations (excluding the impact of the Antas impairment and forex losses) to be in a range of A$104-$110 million.

Atlantic Nickel’s Santa Rita nickel project on the rebound

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Atlantic Nickel and Appian Capital Advisory say the first sale of nickel concentrate from the Santa Rita nickel sulphide re-start project, in Brazil, has been made, some six months after blasting activities recommenced.

Since blasting restarted in July, Atlantic Nickel has safely achieved several operational milestones on or ahead of schedule, it said. Refurbishment of the plant is complete, and the ramp-up of commissioning activities has resulted in early production of nickel concentrate. The company has produced over 11,000 t to date and is set to deliver its first shipment in January of 2020.

Santa Rita is an open-pit nickel-copper-cobalt sulphide operation located in Bahia, Brazil. It is a fully permitted, restart-ready, past-producing nickel mine benefitting from $1 billion of prior investment from previous owners such as Mirabela Nickel. The mine, which was placed on care and maintenance in 2015 by Mirabela, has an estimated production capacity of 6.5 Mt/y.

On the back of strong commercial interest, Atlantic Nickel and Appian have looked to establish relationships with a diverse set of offtake partners and, in line with this strategy, Atlantic Nickel has entered into a three-year offtake contract for a portion of Santa Rita’s production and a $40.8 million financing arrangement with Trafigura.

The company said: “The deal provides the remaining funding required for the restart of the project and establishes a strong relationship with a best-in-class global commodities trading firm.”

Following the announcement of recent drilling results, an updated open-pit reserve statement is planned for completion in the March quarter and the company expects to undertake further drilling in 2020 to continue to grow and define the long life underground resource potential. Production is expected to reach nominal annualised capacity in 2020.

Paulo Castellari, CEO Atlantic Nickel & Appian Brazil, said: “Today’s announcement further de-risks the project and I remain confident in Santa Rita’s prospects as a low-cost, long-life mine that is well positioned to benefit from the growth in electric vehicles to generate strong investor returns.”

Atlantic Nickel, the 100% owner of Santa Rita, was acquired by Appian in 2018.

Anglo American receives Minas-Rio tailings approval

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Anglo American says it has received an important licence for the tailings facility at its Minas-Rio iron ore mine, in Brazil, that will help the long life operation reach its full potential.

The company received the next phase of its operating licence for the facility following the work to raise the dam as part of the Step 3 licence area of the mine. The regulatory authorities in Brazil granted the installation licence for this work in January 2018 and the construction work was completed in accordance with that licence in August 2019, Anglo said.

Seamus French, CEO of Bulk Commodities at Anglo American, said: “This is an important milestone for our Minas-Rio iron ore operation in Brazil towards reaching its full potential. Minas-Rio has a long asset life of 48 years and produces a high grade, premium quality product for our customers, supporting lower emissions in the steel industry.”

He added: “We expect Minas-Rio to produce 23 Mt in 2019, with an FOB unit cost of circa-$24/t.”

The Minas-Rio tailings dam uses a downstream construction design and is an embankment dam structure, built using compacted imported earth-fill material, with carefully selected granular materials for the drainage and filter zones, Anglo explained. Tailings are not used to build the dam, and instead construction materials are placed in controlled layers.

“This is a conservative and high quality design for a tailings dam, being designed and built as a water-retaining type of dam,” the company said.

Vale halts tailings disposal at Brucutu dam as it outlines dry stacking investments

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Vale says it has taken the decision to temporarily suspend the disposal of tailings at the Laranjeiras dam, part of the Brucutu iron ore mine, in Minas Gerais, Brazil, while assessing the dam’s geotechnical characteristics.

During the shutdown, the dam will have the Level 1 emergency protocol adopted, Vale said. This does not require the evacuation of the downstream population, according to the National Mining Agency.

The Laranjeiras dam had its Statement of Condition of Stability issued on September 30, 2019, which remains valid, Vale clarified.

During the suspension period – estimated at 1-2 months – the Brucutu plant will operate with around 40% of its capacity through wet processing with tailings filtration and dry stacking, Vale said. This will reduce output by some 1.5 Mt/mth of iron ore.

The temporary stoppage does not lead to changes in Vale’s iron ore and pellet sales guidance, which remains, in 2019 and in the December quarter, at 307-312 Mt and 83-88 Mt, respectively.

For the March quarter 2020, production and sales are expected to range between 68-73 Mt, due to weather-related seasonality, the gradual and safe return of operations and in line with the margin over volume strategy, it said.

Despite this setback, Vale executives reiterated its ambitious ‘dry processing’ tailings plan at its Vale Day event in New York, yesterday.

The company said, in its Northern System, 81% of iron ore production was already through the dry processing route, while the Minas Gerais division had 32% of production through such means. Vale plans to convert 70% of its output to dry processing by 2023, compared with 60% today.

The company is investing $1.8 billion between 2020 and 2024 to help with this dry stacking aim, with the main sites operating converting to this solution being the Cauê, Conceição and Brucutu operations.

In addition to this, Vale executives said the company plans to produce the world’s first industrial-scale dry magnetic fines concentrate through the dry concentration innovations it acquired with New Steel in 2018. Vale plans to spend $100 million for 1.5 Mt/y of dry product, with start-up planned in 2022, according to the executives.

In addition to this, Vale said it had moved up its renewable energy plans at its operations and now intended to power its Brazil mines by only renewable means by 2025, compared with its previous 2030 goal. It would go global with 100% renewables by 2030, it added.

Minas-Rio could feel the effects of coarse particle flotation tech, Anglo says

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The coarse particle flotation technology being explored as part of Anglo American’s FutureSmart Mining™ platform is gaining traction after the company announced it was to carry out a prefeasibility study on applying it at the Minas-Rio iron ore mine, in Brazil.

The announcement, made during a “Bulks Seminar & Site Visit” in Brisbane, Australia, comes shortly after DRA Global confirmed it had been awarded a feasibility study contract to build a coarse particle recovery plant at Anglo’s Quellaveco copper project, currently in construction in the Moquegua region of Peru.

During the seminar, Anglo said the application of coarse particle flotation technology could see 20% of feed rejected as silica sand, improving the product quality and consistency at Minas-Rio. It also said it could potentially provide a circa-$500 million net present value uplift at the operation, on top of a 15% water saving and 20-30% mill energy reduction.

The coarse particle flotation technology is expected to play a key role in the company’s aim to ultimately eliminate tailings dams, according to Anglo American Technical Director, Tony O’Neill.

It should allow the company to coarsen grind size while maintaining recoveries – thereby reducing the energy required to grind ore, as well as reducing water intensity by more than 20%. When combined with dry-disposal technology, the company is targeting a reduction in water intensity of more than 50%.

The company previously said it was set for trials of the technology at its Amplats operations in 2020.

The flowsheet at Minas-Rio currently includes crushing, screening, milling, desliming, grinding and flotation, with 38% Fe grade ore upgraded to a 67% Fe pellet feed product.

Vale and BHP cleared for Samarco iron ore restart

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Vale says its joint venture Samarco Mineração SA division has been given clearance to restart operating activities at its Germano Complex, in Minas Gerais, Brazil, some four years after a dam collapse shuttered the operation.

Vale said the division, owned 50:50 by it and BHP, had received the Corrective Operation License (LOC) for its operating activities in the complex, adding that the licence was approved by the Mining Activities Chamber (CMI) of the State Council for Environmental Policy (COPAM).

Following this authorisation, Samarco has now obtained all environmental licences required to restart its operations.

Samarco is due to restart its operations using dry stacking technologies that, Vale says, will reduce the risk of such an accident happening again.

“For this reason, the operational restart of iron ore extraction and beneficiation plants in Germano and the pelletisation plant in the Ubu Complex, located in Anchieta, state of Espírito Santo, will only occur after the implementation of a filtration system, which construction is expected to take around 12 months,” Vale said. During this period, Samarco will continue operational readiness activities including equipment maintenance.

Following the implementation of the filtration process, and subject to shareholder approval, Samarco currently expects to restart its operations around the end of 2020, Vale says.

With the filtration process, Samarco expects to be able to substantially dewater sand tailings, which represents 80% of total tailings by volume, and stack these filtered tailings safely. The remaining 20% of tailings will be deposited in Alegria Sul pit, a bedrock self-contained structure, to increase safety. Alegria Sul pit preparation works began in October 2018 and were concluded this month.

Following changes to the environmental and regulatory frameworks for mining in Brazil in 2019, Samarco adjusted its mining and tailings disposal assumptions, including a reduction in the capacity of the Alegria Sul pit, so tailings would be confined to the self-contained area. This also led to a reduction in the capacity to store filtered tailings due to the classification of the Germano pit as a dam, which will now be decommissioned in accordance with the regulation.

The above-mentioned changes to regulatory and tailings disposal assumptions materially impact the expected ramp up of Samarco operations given a range of factors, including but not limited to the completion of additional licensing processes and the development of additional tailings disposal sites, the company said.

Samarco expects to be able to restart operations through one concentrator and produce some 7-8 Mt/y following the installation of the filtration technology.

A second concentrator could be restarted in around six years to reach a range production of 14-16 Mt/y, while the restart of the third concentrator could happen in around 10 years after the issuance of the LOC, when Samarco expects to reach annual production volume in a range of approximately 22-24 Mt/y, it said.

Autonomous haul trucks coming to Vale’s Carajás iron ore mine

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Vale says it is to start trialling autonomous haulage at its Carajás mine in Pará, Brazil, following a successful deployment at its Brucutu iron ore mine in Minas Gerais.

The company plans to run both autonomous and manned trucks at the operation, the world’s largest open-pit iron ore mine, it said.

Completion of the autonomous testing phase is planned to June 2020, when the autonomous vehicles begin to operate. The number of autonomous vehicles will increase year by year and, depending on the test results, may reach 37 in 2024.

This year, the company’s Brucutu iron ore mine began operating exclusively with autonomous haul trucks. Thirteen Caterpillar 240 ton (218 t) 793F CMD fully autonomous trucks, managed using the Cat autonomous haulage system, Command for hauling, part of its MineStar™ suite of technology products, are now running, after the company equipped seven trucks with this technology in 2018.

Combined with a staff development and training plan at Carajás, the autonomous innovation aims to increase the safety of operations, in addition to generating environmental benefits and a competitive edge, Vale said.

Two autonomous trucks are expected to start the testing phase in an isolated area of Carajás mine by the end of November, but training of the operators began in October. In addition to autonomous haulage, three autonomous drills started operating in the mine last year, Vale said.

Vale explained: “In an autonomous operation, trucks are controlled by computer systems, GPS, radar, and artificial intelligence, and monitored by operators in control rooms located miles away from the operations, providing more safety for the activity. When risks are detected, the equipment shuts down until the path is cleared. Sensors of the safety system can detect larger objects, such as large rocks and other trucks, as well as people near the roads.”

Compared with conventional transport, productivity of the autonomous operation system is higher, according to Vale. “Based on the technology market data, Vale expects to increase the useful life of equipment by 15%. Fuel consumption and maintenance costs are also estimated to be reduced by 10%, and the average speed for trucks will increase,” it said.

Autonomous operation also brings important environmental benefits. The reduced consumption of fuel by the machines results in a lower volume of CO2 and particulate matter emissions and less waste, such as parts, tyres and lubricants.

According to Antonio Padovezi, North Corridor Director for Vale, in addition to the safety factor, the use of autonomous equipment in Carajás will ensure greater sustainability for Brazilian mining. “It is another breakthrough with great economic, environmental, and social gains. It reduces employees’ exposure to risks, increases competitiveness, reduces emission of polluting gases and promotes professional training and development, following a natural trend experienced today in the market worldwide,” Padovezi said.

Implementation of the autonomous operation is combined with a staff development plan, which includes creation of a training centre in the city of Parauapebas by the supplying company. The plan is along the lines of Brucutu, where all conventional truck operators will be reassigned to other activities. At Brucutu, part of the team is managing and controlling the autonomous equipment while another part is taking on new “automation-related tasks”. Some employees have been reallocated to other areas.

Vale is deploying a digital transformation program as part of its Industry 4.0 developments.

This has allowed the company to increase productivity, operational efficiency, and safety, in addition to improving its financial performance and driving innovation, the company said.

Technological innovations developed by the company include the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, mobile applications, robotisation, and autonomous equipment (such as trucks and drills).

The program will also support the strategic pillars presented by Vale this year – improve the company’s operational approach to safety and operational excellence as well as bring a positive impact to society, becoming a development facilitator for the areas in which it operates while promoting a safer and more sustainable industry, Vale said.

Vale’s Vargem Grande iron ore complex slowly coming back to life

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Vale says Brazil’s National Mining Agency (Agência Nacional de Mineração – ANM) has authorised the partial resumption of dry processing operations at the Vargem Grande Complex in Minas Gerais.

The Vargem complex is comprised of three operating mines — Capitão do Mato, Tamanduá and Abóboras — and produces a mixture of fines, lump and concentrate products for the seaborne export market and the Vargem Grande pellet plant.

Vale said all operations of the complex were suspended by ANM on February 20, to prevent “occasional triggers” that could affect tailings dam stability as a result of ongoing activities at the complex.

Vargem was one of several operations that were suspended after one of Vale’s tailings dams ruptured at its Córrego do Feijão mine (Paraopeba complex) on January 25, 2019.

The decision will enable the partial resumption of dry processing operations at the complex within 24 hours, totalling about 5 Mt of additional production in 2019, thus increasing the supply of Brazilian Blend Fines, Vale said.

The Brazil-based miner reaffirmed its 2019 iron ore and pellets sales guidance of 307-332 Mt, as per previous announcements.

Coringa dry stacking plan finds favour with state environmental agency, Serabi says

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With Serabi Gold having supplied all required data for a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) on its Coringa gold project, in Brazil, to its independent consultants Global Resource Engineering Limited, CEO Mike Hodgson says the London- and Toronto-listed firm is now working hard on the permitting side.

Permitting a mine in Brazil – in particular the waste storage element – has become a lot trickier in the past few years following two major tailings dam collapses at iron ore mines in the country.

But, in the company’s June quarter results, Hodgson said Serabi was making good progress on permitting Coringa, a deposit that comes with 216,000 oz of indicated resources at an average in-situ grade of 7.95 g/t Au and inferred resources of 298,000 oz at 6.46 g/t.

He said: “The plan to replace a conventional tailings dam with installing a filtration plant allowing for the dry stacking of tails has been well received by the state environmental agency, SEMAS, who had already approved the original environmental impact assessment (EIA) on the basis of a conventional dam.”

The company is now completing an amendment to the EIA to reflect this design variation, he said, explaining that Serabi expects SEMAS to approve the amendment and, then, proceed with the necessary public hearings.

“We hope to be in a position to receive the Preliminary Licence during the second half of the year,” he said.

Coringa is located in north-central Brazil, in Pará State, 70 km southeast of the city of Novo Progresso.

Artisanal mining at Coringa produced an estimated 10 t of gold (322,600 oz) from alluvial and primary sources within the deep saprolite or oxidised parts of shear zones being mined using high-pressure water hoses or hand-cobbing to depths of 15 m, according to Serabi. Other than the artisanal workings, no other production has occurred at Coringa.

Serabi acquired Coringa from Anfield Mining on December 21, 2017, with management considering the asset to be very much a “carbon-copy” of Palito in terms of the geology, size and mining operations that will be used. The company’s Palito complex is made up of high grade, narrow vein underground mines that produce around 40,000 oz/y of gold.

The PEA on Coringa is still expected to be completed by the end of July, Serabi said.

SNC-Lavalin wins EPCM contract for NEXA Aripuanã polymetallic project

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SNC-Lavalin has been awarded an engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) contract from NEXA Resources for its majority-owned Aripuanã zinc-copper-lead project in Mato Grosso, Brazil.

The Montreal-based professional services and project management company will deliver EPCM services for the project out of its Belo Horizonte office, in Brazil, and will include all operations required for copper, zinc and lead ore processing, including crushing, grinding, flotation, thickening, filtration and storage of concentrates and tailings, as well as load out of the final concentrated products and all related surface infrastructure, it said. The mandate also includes waste backfill, mine ventilation, and mine dewatering.

The Aripuanã project is an underground polymetallic mine and concentrate processing facility to extract zinc, copper and lead. Once completed, it will have an anticipated mine life of 13 years and a processing capacity of 1.8 Mt/y of ore per year, according to SNC-Lavalin.

The project’s zinc process flowsheet has been developed by considering conventional technologies for treatment, including sequential flotation for the recovery of zinc, copper, and lead as separate concentrates, according to NEXA.

SNC-Lavalin said the project will rely on “data-centric engineering” for development and design, and the use of immersive technologies for training operations personnel.

Work has begun and is slated for completion by the beginning of 2021.

Maria de Lourdes Bahia, General Manager of SNC-Lavalin Brazil, said: “Our Mining & Metallurgy sector has a long history in reimbursable EPCM services, and this award is testament to our continued recognition in this model of project delivery.

“This mandate is well aligned with our services-based strategy for mining and metallurgy projects. We look forward to continuing our trusted relationship with NEXA Resources in the successful execution of the project.”