Vale to end use and dismantle all upstream dams after disaster — CEO

Vale SA, the world’s largest iron ore miner, on Tuesday vowed to take as much as 10 percent of its ore output offline in order to decommission 19 dams like the one that burst last week, killing scores of workers and nearby residents.

Chief Executive Fabio Schvartsman said Vale would halt operations using those dams and spend 5 billion reais ($1.3 billion) to decommission them over the next three years. At the peak of that process, the impact on Vale’s production will be 40 million tonnes of iron ore and 11 million tonnes of iron pellets per year, he said.

(Reporting by Jake Spring Writing by Marcelo Teixeira Editing by Brad Haynes and Dan Grebler)

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