Samarco recovers 60% of pre-Mariana production capacity with new technology

Samarco has already recovered 60% of its production capacity prior to the Mariana dam disaster (MG), said Rodrigo Vilela, CEO of the mining company, during CNN Talks: New Era of Mining, held this Tuesday (30), in São Paulo, bringing together authorities, experts and sector leaders.

The executive explained to CNN Brasil that the company is in a new stage, seeking to invest in a concept of new technologies, without depending on dams built upstream - a method of containing tailings in which dikes are built over the already deposited tailings.

The CEO of Samarco highlighted that the Mariana disaster was a turning point in the history of the sector, promoting technological changes and in Brazilian legislation itself, which after the updates "does not lose out to other regulations".

After the collapse of the dams in Mariana and Brumadinho (MG), legislation prohibited this type of construction and required the decharacterization of structures of this type.

Vilela says that the company works "one step at a time" to "rebuild the possibility of operating".

"It's a process, long-term work. Confidence doesn't happen overnight, it's one step at a time, a gradual recovery, and doing the most important thing, which is repair", pointed out the executive.

"We adopted a new model that allows us to talk to society in an open way", he emphasized.

In this recovery process, the company's expectation is to regain its position as the second largest exporter of iron pellets in the world from 2029.

Critical minerals could increase the country's GDP by R$243 billion by 2050

Source: CNN