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.
Rio Tinto, the world’s number two miner in terms of revenues, suffered the same fate as many of its peers on Wednesday with a downgrade by Moody’s Investor Services.
The credit ratings agency downgraded the senior unsecured ratings of Melbourne-based Rio and its subsidiaries one notch from to Baa1 from A3 with a negative outlook.
Moody’s said the downgrade reflects its view “that there has been a fundamental downward shift in the mining sector with the downturn being deeper and prospects for a recovery extended, resulting in increased credit risk and weaker metrics” for the Anglo-Australian giant and the mining sector as a whole:
“The slowing economic growth rates in China materially impact the demand for base metals while the reducing steel production rates impact demand for iron ore and metallurgical coal – leading to lower prices. Supply imbalances, particularly in iron ore, the major earnings and cash flow driver for Rio Tinto, will maintain pressure on prices for several years.
“While lower oil prices, lower freight costs, and currency depreciation contribute to reduced costs, the drop in prices has and will continue to significantly impact performance. In addition, the strong US dollar is a further factor contributing to weakening demand and driving prices lower since most metals are traded in dollars.”
2 Comments
James Bond
What happened to Sam Walshs “my company recovery plan will be in Harvard textbooks” recovery. Maybe he will make the textbooks but not as he wanted.
Altaf
He followed his plan which was conventional.
His plan was to flood the markets with excess iron ore so that all the high cost Chinese marginal miners will close mines and then all international high cost miners will go into debt. At such time he thought he will buy them over at distressed prices and dominate the trade singularly. He did every thing correctly on supply side. His plan would have worked. But he forgot to see demand side of the story. China slow down caught him off guard. Now he is neck deep stuck with massive investments made and no one to sell to.
This will also make to Harvard textbooks.