09/01/2018
Samarco is arriving in 2018 with the challenge of enabling its return to operations. Resuming activities is necessary in order for the company to be able to honor its commitment to reparations that were assumed after the Fundão Dam break, maintain employees and contribute to the development of the communities in which it is present. The first steps to obtain the necessary environmental licenses were taken, but it is equally important to us to have social permission, obtained from the acknowledgement of the social value generated by the company’s work.
The impacts of the Fundão Dam break were profound, but we have seen that there is a desire in the municipalities in which we have worked for the past 40 years, to grant us a social license. This observation comes from the contact that we have had with thousands of people during the public hearings for the environmental licensing for the Alegria Sul pit, which took place in December 2016, as well as the Corrective Operational Licensing (LOC) for the Germano Complex, which took place in December 2017
A total of approximately 5.5 thousand people participated in these hearings, showing a high degree of involvement. We have seen a lot of support from the communities in which we are present, both in Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo. Groups of businessmen and leaders from Espirito Santo traveled nearly 1,000 kilometers to participate in recent hearings and show their support for Samarco.
Samarco has acted on all fronts in order to legitimize its return to operations. Assuming an active role in solving the problems caused by the dam break is a matter of fundamental importance to us. We would like to get back to production, continuing with the story that began four decades ago and fulfilling the commitments we have made to the public.
Even though we are optimists, we know that there is still a long way to go, which keeps us from estimating the date on which will we return to operations. With the support of the communities in which it operates, Samarco needs to go through the stages of the two environmental licensing processes which are underway.
As per the case of the licensing for the Alegria Sul pit’s tailings disposal, we were able to obtain the Preliminary and Installation licenses in early December 2017. These licenses will allow us to prepare the pit, which is one of the areas from which Samarco extracts iron ore, for the disposal of tailings from future operations. The solution presented by the company was shown to be safe and reliable and was approved by 11 of the 12 members of the Technical Mining Board of the State Environmental Policy Council (Copam).
The other ongoing process is the Operational Corrective Licensing (LOC) of the Germano Complex (MG), which is necessary due to the suspension of all licenses by the State Secretariat for Environment and Sustainable Development of Minas Gerais (Semad) in October 2016. Due to the Environmental Impact Study (EIA) for this license, new solutions will be applied to the treatment and disposal of tailings, as well as iron ore beneficiation.
These solutions reflect Samarco’s intention to resume operations incorporating knowledge which will offer maximum security to production. We plan on filtering sandy tailings, which comprise 80% of total tailings generated after iron ore beneficiation, and thickening slurry, which accounts for the other 20%.
Filtering will remove water from the sandy tailings, allowing stacking to occur. The thickening of the slurry will also remove water, reducing the volume of tailings destined for the Alegria Sul pit. Both solutions will allow the reutilization of water in the production process.
We want to resume operations with the trust of public agencies and other sectors of society. We believe in our capacity to reinvent ourselves, to contribute to the mining sector with new practices, to generate jobs and wealth in the areas in which we work and to contribute to the Brazilian trade balance again.
Roberto Carvalho
CEO
