Vale Nears Settlement Agreement for 2015 Tailings Dam Collapse

Brazilian miner Vale anticipates a tentative reparations agreement by month's end with federal and state authorities over the catastrophic 2015 tailings dam collapse that killed 19 people and caused extensive environmental damage. A definitive agreement could take an additional month, with the proposed settlement totaling 140 billion reais.

Brazilian miner Vale expects to reach a tentative agreement by the end of this month with Brazilian federal and state authorities to settle reparations over the deadly 2015 collapse of a tailings dam, an executive said on Thursday.

The Mariana dam collapse caused a wave of toxic tailings that killed 19 people. It left hundreds homeless, flooded forests and polluted the entire length of the Doce River. "It doesn't mean that (an agreement) will be signed by the end of June, because that depends on the construction of the definitive documents, but by the end of June we hope that there will be a consensus," said Alexandre D'Ambrosio, Vale's executive vice-president of corporate and institutional affairs, at an event in Rio de Janeiro.

A definitive agreement could take at least another month, he said. D'Ambrosio's remarks come a day after Vale, Australian miner BHP and their joint venture Samarco presented Brazilian authorities with a new offer to settle reparations for the dam collapse after Brazil rejected its previous one.

The miners' proposal totals 140 billion reais ($26.08 billion), which breaks down to 82 billion reais to be paid to the federal government and the Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo states over 20 years, 37 billion reais they have already spent and 21 billion for future obligations, such as the removal of tailings from the Doce River. In 2019, another Vale-owned tailings dam in Brumadinho, Brazil collapsed, killing 270 people. ($1 = 5.3674 reais)

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