Collectively, Brazil is home to 24,000 employees and contractors, the great majority of whom are Brazilian. Employing local staff has long been the company’s policy, yet Anglo American’s influence extends far beyond job creation.
For the story of Anglo American in Brazil is also one of social progress. The company has made great strides in securing a sustainable future not just for its mining facilities, but for the environment and local communities. Together, it’s a partnership that promises long-term prosperity for both country and company. Here’s to the next 40 years...
1970s: gold rush
In early 1973, Anglo American do Brasil (Ambras) opened its first office in Rio de Janeiro, focused on gold mining. The following year Ambras began a thorough geological inspection of the Morro Velho mining complex, which had been in near-continuous production for 140 years. In 1975, Ambras acquired technical control, and half of Mineração Morro Velho’s share capital, from its principal owner Brazilian banker Dr Moreira Salles, making Morro Velho the company’s anchor project in Brazil.
1980s: diversification begins
Ambras’s growing influence as a gold mining company was strengthened in 1980, when it bought the remaining 50% of Morro Velho. Elsewhere, the company developed the Crixás mine in Goiás state, built a new processing facility at Queiroz and established a new mine at Cuiabá.
Along with consolidating its gold operations, the 1980s saw the beginning of a diversification that would characterise the company’s future in Brazil. In 1981, Anglo American took a 40% interest in the South American portfolio of the Hochschild mining group. Three years later, it acquired the remaining 60% and with it control of assets worth more than $900 million.
This provided a platform for Ambras to seek opportunities in other commodities too: nickel, copper, niobium, phosphates, petrochemicals, paper and packaging – even what was probably at the time the world’s biggest cashew nut producer at Iracema. Among these was the Codemin nickel plant, which began production in 1982 and would eventually be producing 9,600 tonnes per year by 2012.
Another important acquisition came in 1983 when a 73% stake of Copebrás was acquired by Anglo American. In 1984, the firm started production of phosphate fertilizers, continuously expanding its production capacity throughout the rest of the decade.
1990s: entering a new era
As the 20th century drew to a close, Anglo American embarked on a bold transformation of its business. Anglo American Corporation of South Africa was combined with its offshore arm Minorco. The new company, Anglo American plc, had its primary stock exchange listing and headquarters in London.
Such a seismic change marked the beginning of a measured withdrawal from the very commodity that had brought the company to Brazil in the first place. With the company’s gold interests now held within this new, larger entity, the full value of this commodity was not being reaped by investors. So the decision was taken to gradually wind down the gold portfolio, a process which eventually ended in 2009.
The phosphates business was also streamlined in 1998, when Copebrás sold its carbon black business, allowing it to focus on phosphate fertilisers.
2000s: acquisition and discovery
In October 2000, Anglo American enlarged its share of the niobium operation – named Mineração Catalão – to 100%. Three years later, the company initiated the biggest phosphates enterprise in its history: the Goiás Project. This expanded production facilities in Goiás, increasing the company’s global production of phosphate fertilisers to 1.14 million tonnes per year.
Elsewhere, there was an increased focus on nickel exploration. Major successes include the discovery of world-class deposits at both Jacaré (nickel saprolite and nickel-cobalt laterite) and at Morro Sem Boné (nickel saprolite).
Meanwhile, new safety standards were being set at Barro Alto. This $1.9 billion pyro-metallurgy-based processing facility is one of two Anglo American nickel operations in Brazil (the other being Codemin). During the construction of the plant, the team recorded 37.4 million man hours at a remarkably low lost-time injury rate of 0.038 per 200,000 hours.
Anglo American’s biggest project in Brazil, and one of the world’s great mining projects, began in 2007-08 with the acquisition of Minas-Rio. The project incorporates an open-pit mine, beneficiation plant, filtration plant and tailings dam in Minas Gerais, plus a 230-kilovolt transmission line.
By the time Phase 1 of this enormous project is finished, Minas-Rio will transport ore through a 525-kilometre slurry pipeline (the longest of its type in the world) to a dedicated export terminal at the port of Açu in Rio de Janeiro State.
2010s and after: a growing presence
Mining safely, responsibly and sustainably has been the hallmark of Anglo American’s involvement in Brazil this decade. Barro Alto produced its first metal in March 2011 and is expected to have a 30-year lifespan.
In February 2013, the $325 million Boa Vista Fresh Rock Project was approved, a hugely significant step for Anglo American’s Niobium business, which is located in the cities of Catalão and Ouvidor. The project will increase production at the existing beneficiation plant in Ouvidor from 4,400 tonnes to more than 6,000 tonnes by 2014, creating 800 new jobs in the process.
Ouvidor is also home to an Anglo American phosphates mine. The company is now the second largest integrated phosphate fertilizer producer in Brazil, producing nearly six million tonnes of ore per annum. At current production rates, phosphates will continue to be shipped from the site for the next 40 years. Further expansion is planned through the Goiás II project too, which will involve searching for new phosphate rock reserves in the area.
The decade ahead promises much for Minas-Rio as well, when the first iron ore shipment is expected in 2014. Initial production will be 26.5 million tonnes of iron ore per year, potentially rising to up to 90 million tonnes in the future, should expansion be approved.
