Mozambique: Brazil’s Vale ‘wants to leave responsibly’ in divesting coal assets

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Mozambique: Brazil’s Vale ‘wants to leave responsibly’ in divesting coal assets

7:52 CAT | 17 Aug 2021

File photo: Lusa

Vale, a Brazil-based mining company, has assured Mozambique’s government that it “wants to leave Mozambique in a responsible way” with assets and labour left behind at competitive cost, a government source told Lusa on Monday.

The source said that the assurance had been given by Vale’s global director for coal, Paulo Couto, during a meeting with Mozambique’s minister for mineral resources and energy, Max Tonela.

“Vale has assured us that it does not want a hasty exit and is working for a process of divestment and for a solution that is the least damaging to the interests of all parties,” the source said.

Couto had told the minister that the company was looking at proposals from six companies interested in keeping the assets in Mozambique, following the Brazilian company’s decision to divest its fossil fuel assets, as part of a shift to carbon neutrality.

Despite leaving Mozambique, the company wants to leave behind a competitive operation, and is committed to increasing its coal production in Mozambique’s central Tete province to 20 million tons next year, from an estimated 11 million this year.

Coal is one of Mozambique’s main export products and Vale employs around 3,000 people directly and secures a further 5,000 jobs in the form of outsourcing.

Vale has declared its aim of being carbon neutral by 2050 and reducing some of its main sources of carbon pollution by 2030.

Read: Tete El Dorado never was: A mine is just a mine, as 16 years go by

Source: Lusa