Brazil’s Vale gets $2.8bn for iron ore expansions

Vale SA (NYSE:VALE), the world’s No.1 iron ore producer, received a $2.8 billion loan from the country’s national development bank BNDES for expansions at Carajas, the largest iron-ore complex in the world.

The loan, said the bank according to local newspaper Valor Economico (in Portuguese), will help the Rio de Janeiro-based giant miner improve its railway network and build a new mining and processing unit in Para state, with annual capacity of 90 million metric tons.

Last summer Vale received a licence from the Environmental Protection Agency of Brazil to build a $19.5 billion railway expansion its Serra Sul mine, in Carajas. The project is expected to start production in 2016 and reach full capacity of 90-million tonnes a year of iron-ore in 2018, or nearly a third of Vale’s existing annual output.

Serra Sul will also be the world’s first truck-less mine, using conveyor belts to automate production processes.

Over 115 million tons of iron ore were produced in Carajas last year. It holds 7.2 billion metric tons of iron ore in proven and probable reserves.