A slurry pipeline is a specially engineered pipeline used to move ores, such as coal or iron, or mining waste, called tailings, over long distances. A mixture of the ore concentrate and water, called slurry, is pumped to its destination and the water is filtered out. Due to the abrasive properties of slurry, the pipelines can be lined with high-density polyethylene (HDPE), or manufactured completely from HDPE Pipe, although this requires a very thick pipe wall. Slurry pipelines are used as an alternative to railroad transportation when mines are located in remote, inaccessible areas.
Minas Gerais is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte, is a major urban and finance center in Latin America, and the sixth largest municipality in Brazil, after the cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Brasília and Fortaleza, but its metropolitan area is the third largest in Brazil with just over 5,800,000 inhabitants, after those of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Nine Brazilian presidents were born in Minas Gerais, the most of any state. The state has 10.1% of the Brazilian population and is responsible for 8.7% of the Brazilian GDP.
Anglo American plc is a British listed multinational mining company with headquarters in London, England. It is the world's largest producer of platinum, with around 40% of world output, as well as being a major producer of diamonds, copper, nickel, iron ore and metallurgical and thermal coal. The company has operations in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America.
Vale S.A. is a Brazilian multinational corporation engaged in metals and mining and one of the largest logistics operators in Brazil.
Caemi Mineração e Metalurgia S.A. was a major Brazilian mining holding company that ceased to exist in December 2006 after it was merged into Vale. Caemi means Companhia Auxiliar de Empresas de Mineração.
Morro Velho, also called AngloGold Ashanti Brasil Mineração, after its current owner AngloGold Ashanti, is a complex of gold mines located near the city of Nova Lima in the Minas Gerais state of Brazil.
Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) lit. 'National Siderurgy Company' or 'National Steel Company' is the largest fully integrated steel producer in Brazil and one of the largest in Latin America in terms of crude steel production. Its main plant is located in the city of Volta Redonda, in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Its current CEO is Benjamin Steinbruch.
Itabira is a Brazilian municipality and a major city in the state of Minas Gerais. The city belongs to the Belo Horizonte metropolitan area mesoregion and to the Itabira microregion.
Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation PLC (ENRC) is a private, Kazakhstan/Central African-focused, multinational leading diversified natural resources company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It has activities in integrated mining, processing, energy, logistics and marketing.
Itaguaí is a municipality located in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro and contains several important iron ore loading ports of the world including Ilha Guaiba. Its population was 134,819 in 2020 and its area is 273 km2. The city was founded in 1688 and lies midway between Rio de Janeiro and Angra dos Reis.
Mining in Brazil is centered on the extraction of iron, copper, gold, aluminum, manganese, tin, niobium, and nickel. About gemstones, Brazil is the world's largest producer of amethyst, topaz, agate and is a big producer of tourmaline, emerald, aquamarine, garnet and opal.
The Telequartz Group of Mining Companies, founded by João Cosac in 1926, is Brazil's largest, longest-established and best-qualified miner, processor and exporter of rock crystals. Working also with other minerals, the group is the largest exporter of quartz in the world nowadays. Brazil is estimated to have 53 Mmt of reserves representing 95% of the known world supply.
Romania ranks tenth in the world in terms of the diversity of minerals produced in the country. Around 60 different minerals are currently produced in Romania. The richest mineral deposits in the country are halite.
Ferrexpo plc is a Swiss-based commodity trading and mining company which is the third largest exporter of iron ore pellets in the world. Ferrexpo's operating base is in central Ukraine, where it operates three iron-ore mines and an iron ore pellet production facility. The company's trading office is located in London where it is listed on the London Stock Exchange and it is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index and FTSE4Good Index.
MMX is the mining company of the EBX Group founded in 2005. It is engaged in the extraction, beneficiation and sale of iron ore and minerals in Brazil and Chile. The company was filed for bankruptcy in 2016, and it is part of the current investigation of fraud and money laundering linked to its owner Eike Batista.
Minas-Rio is an iron ore mining project in Minas Gerais state, Brazil. It is one of the world's largest mining projects, and is initially expected to export 26.5 million tonnes of iron ore in 2013, through a 525 km slurry pipeline to a port at Açu; production potential is 53 Mtpa or higher.
Mining in North Korea is important to the country's economy. North Korea is naturally abundant in metals such as magnesite, zinc, tungsten, and iron; with magnesite resources of 6 billion tonnes, particularly in the North and South Hamgyong Province and Chagang Province. However, often these cannot be mined due to the acute shortage of electricity in the country, as well as the lack of proper tools to mine these materials and an antiquated industrial base. Coal, iron ore, limestone, and magnesite deposits are larger than other mineral commodities. Mining joint ventures with other countries include China, Canada, Egypt, and South Korea.
The Mariana dam disaster, also known as the Bento Rodrigues or Samarco dam disaster, occurred on 5 November 2015, when the Fundão tailings dam at the Germano iron ore mine of the Samarco Mariana Mining Complex near Mariana, Minas Gerais, Brazil, suffered a catastrophic failure, resulting in flooding that devastated the downstream villages of Bento Rodrigues and Paracatu de Baixo, killing 19 people. The extent of the damage caused by the tailings dam collapse is the largest ever recorded with pollutants spread along 668 kilometres (415 mi) of watercourses.
The Brumadinho dam disaster occurred on 25 January 2019 when Dam I, a tailings dam at the Córrego do Feijão iron ore mine, 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) east of Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil, suffered a catastrophic failure. The dam is owned by Vale, the same company that was involved in the 2015 Mariana dam disaster. The dam released a mudflow that advanced through the mine's offices, including a cafeteria during lunchtime, along with houses, farms, inns, and roads downstream. 270 people died as a result of the collapse, of whom 259 were officially confirmed dead, in January 2019, and 11 others reported as missing, whose bodies had not been found.
The Iron Quadrangle is a mineral-rich region covering about 7,000 square kilometres (2,700 sq mi) in the central-southern part of the Brazilian state Minas Gerais. The area is known for its extensive deposits of gold, diamonds, and iron ore, being the source of approximately 40% of all gold produced in Brazil between the years 1500 and 2000. The deposits themselves pertain to the Minas Supergroup, a sequence of meta-sedimentary rocks initially formed in the Paleoproterozoic, about 2.5 Ga. In the 2010s, there have been two collapses of large tailings dams, which caused extensive damage and loss of life.
