Brazilian court clears BHP, Vale, and Samarco of charges in 2015 dam disaster
A court in Belo Horizonte ruled that state prosecutors failed to prove that "individual actions" directly contributed to the collapse of the dam.
The Brazilian Ministry of Energy and Mines issued a press release stating that the country secured $21.6 million in a recent tender of lands available for mining projects.
This was the fifth round of a larger tender process and it involved a total of 4,500 tenements of which 1,123 were purchased in the public offering stage.
According to the government body, another 1,459 areas received more than one interested party and were moved into an auction stage.
Vale was among the companies that acquired some lands in the tender. The iron ore giant paid about $8,850 for two tenements in the northern Pará state.
Between 2020 and 2021, Brazil offered almost 16,500 land packages in tender, all of which generated over $41 million in revenue. For the year 2022, the National Mining Agency (ANM) plans to run four public offer notices for mining areas.
“Conducted by the ANM, the public offer has become one of the main mechanisms for increasing the attractiveness of the Brazilian mineral sector to investors,” the statement reads. “The procedure aims to select those interested in following up on mining projects that have been returned to the agency’s portfolio.”
