Vale says to purchase technology to decrease need for tailings dams

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SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian mining company Vale SA offers to invest about 1.5 billion reais ($409 million) in so-called dry stacking tailing systems get rid of its reliance upon tailings dams, it said late Tuesday, following a dam burst recently killing nearly 300 people.

The Brumadinho dam burst on Jan. 25, killing 142 people and leaving almost 200 still missing, good latest report from rescue workers.

Vale said its propose to shift to dry tailings, which will start buy, was aimed at boosting the dry processing piece of its production to 70 percent by 2023, thus lowering the need for dams inside the operations.

Investments to service Vale’s existing dams in 2019 will total about $70 million, the firm said, representing a 180 percent increase from 2019. That year a Vale three way partnership was accountable for another deadly dam spill that killed 19 people and polluted a big river.

($1 = 3.6695 reais)