Brazil plans to become main producer/exporter of iron ore by 2015

Monday, July 9th 2012 - 12:29 UTC

Full article 3 comments

Hong Kong's Honbridge Holdings Ltd plans to build a 420-kilometre pipeline to ship iron-ore from a mine in Brazil's Minas Gerais state to a port on the country's Atlantic coast, the Estado de Minas newspaper reported. Read full article

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ChrisR
Seems the locals may benefit for once but 420km is a long way to pump ore slurry.

Pity there is no train track to help local development as well.
Jul 09th, 2012 - 10:02 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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MarkWhelan
The dam will also provide water to irrigate 500 small farms in the impoverished and drought-prone region.
With this thought in mind I am wondering who will miss out on the water during the droughts?
Probably the impoverished farmers.
What will happen to the waste water from the slurry?
We can not expect the enviromental report to cover this aspect as the politicals line their pockets can we?
Jul 14th, 2012 - 04:06 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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ChrisR
2 MarkWhelan

It all depends whether there will be a pelletising plant at the docks. Apparently the pelletising option does improve the green credentials of the overall project.

The slurry is concentrated before being put into agitated storage tanks prior to pellitising. The process draws the water out in a similar manner to a seawater magnesia plant does (cyclonic extractors) and the remaining water is fairly clean, enough to go into the sea or rivers.

The only downside is that the pellets are fired to produce a transport durable product. This obviously involves heat, usually in rotating kilns.
Jul 14th, 2012 - 07:06 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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