Mining giant Vale (NYSE: VALE) took a hit on Wednesday when Moody’s Investor Service downgraded its debt to junk.<\/p>\n
Moody\u2019s downgraded the miner\u2019s senior unsecured ratings and the ratings on the debt issues of Vale Overseas Limited. The downgrades remove Vale\u2019s credit rating from the investment range entirely.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe outlook for all ratings is negative,\u201d Moody\u2019s reported. \u201cThese rating actions conclude the review for possible downgrade for Vale’s ratings initiated on 29 January 2019 in response to the collapse of the tailings dam at the C\u00f3rrego do Feij\u00e3o mine in the city of Brumadinho, state of Minas Gerais.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following the collapse, Vale\u00a0declared force majeure<\/a> on some iron ore contracts after a court-ordered halt to a mine responsible for nearly 9% of its output.\u00a0The force majeure on some iron ore and pellets sales contracts came after a court on Monday ordered it to stop using eight tailings dams, including one affecting production of about 30 million tonnes of iron ore output per year.<\/p>\n At market close, Vale\u2019s shares were trading at $12.50, down 16% since before the accident.<\/p>\n Also on Wednesday, the Brazil Senate passed a dam safety bill<\/a>\u00a0in response to the disaster.<\/p>\n The legislation tightens safety regulations on all types of dams, would ban upstream tailings dams similar to those that burst, strengthening a move already taken at the administrative level by the National Mining Agency.<\/p>\n This comes after The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), a London-based industry group representing 27 major companies, rallied to set an independent panel of experts<\/a> in charge of developing a global standard for tailings facilities to be followed by its members.<\/p>\n The Brumadinho disaster spurred a worldwide outcry against Vale and the Brazilian government for allowing two similar disasters to happen in \u00a0three years. In 2015, a dam burst in the nearby town of Mariana, killing 19 people.<\/p>\n So far, eight Vale staff and contractors\u00a0have been arrested<\/a>\u00a0in Brazil during the investigation that is part of the fallout from the disaster.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a>\u00a0for complete coverage of the dam burst at Vale’s C\u00f3rrego do Feij\u00e3o mine.<\/em><\/p>\n (With files from Reuters)<\/em><\/p>\n The post Moody’s cuts Vale’s credit rating to junk<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “The outlook for all ratings is negative.”<\/p>\n The post Moody’s cuts Vale’s credit rating to junk<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[404,369,703],"tags":[19,294,71],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102529"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1102529"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1102548,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102529\/revisions\/1102548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1102529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1102529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1102529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}