London judges reverse course to reopen $7bn Brazil dam lawsuit against BHP

Vale SA was made aware of problems with sensors designed to monitor the structure of a dam that ended up bursting, 2 days before the disaster.

Creditors rejected Samarco’s offer to treat the injections as senior or pari-passu debt.

The cut in output forced Vale to declare force majeure in iron ore and pellets contracts on Tuesday.

Vale has come under intense public pressure since the Jan. 25 dam burst, with some politicians and prosecutors calling for criminal prosecution and a management shakeup.

The problem for miners is convincing an increasingly sceptical public of how necessary their industry is.

Simandou is one of the world's biggest iron deposits, containing billions of tonnes of high-grade ore, but development has been complicated by its location far from the coast.

Coal became the number one export earner in 2018.

Iron ore prices have surged since the disaster, hitting a nearly two-year high on Monday.

The best defense against the repercussions of a mounting pile of debt, and the new cold war, is to own gold - the traditional safe haven.