BHP and Vale agree to pay $30 billion compensation for Brazil dam disaster

Mining giants BHP and Vale on Friday signed a deal with Brazil’s government to pay nearly $30 billion in compensation for the 2015 dam collapse that triggered the country’s worst environmental disaster.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva attended the signing of the agreement on the collapse of a tailings dam at a mine in the city of Mariana, in the southeast of the country, which caused a giant landslide that flooded villages, rivers and tropical forests, killing 19 people. people.

“I hope the mining companies have learned their lesson: it would have cost them less to prevent (the disaster), much less,” Lula said after a ceremony attended by representatives of the Brazilian Vale and the Australian BHP, co-owners of the Brazilian company. Samarco that operated the Fundao dam.

The agreement comes on the fifth day of a megatrial in London over whether BHP was responsible for the spill of more than 40 million cubic meters of highly toxic mining sludge, the equivalent of 12,000 Olympic swimming pools, on November 5, 2015.

More than 620,000 plaintiffs, including 46 Brazilian municipalities, are seeking an estimated £36 billion ($47 million) in damages in the civil trial.

BHP denies liability.

BHP and Vale had already agreed in 2016 to pay 20 billion reais (about $3.5 billion at the current exchange rate) in compensation, but negotiations were reopened in 2021 due to what the government called their “non-compliance” and the slow progress of the negotiations. talks. The Brazilian justice system to resolve the dispute.

Friday’s agreement in Brazil covers its past and future obligations to help people, communities and ecosystems affected by the disaster.

The companies agreed to pay 100 billion reais ($17.5 billion) to local authorities over twenty years and 32 billion reais ($5.6 billion) to compensate and relocate victims and repair damage caused to the environment.

The remaining 38 billion reais ($6.6 billion) is the amount the companies say they have already paid in compensation.

Source: AFP