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Brazil’s Vale ships to dock at Chinese ports as ban lifted
July 3, 2015, 4:47 am

Ships unload iron ore at the ore terminal at Rizhao Port in Shandong province of China in this file photograph [Xinhua]

Ships unload iron ore at the ore terminal at Rizhao Port in Shandong province of China in this file photograph [Xinhua]

Ten months after Brazilian mining giant Vale agreed to sell and lease back its Valemax Very Large Ore Carriers (VLOCs) to China’s Cosco, the Chinese government on Friday said it would permit the docking of its ships in China.

Beijing had banned the docking of the Brazilian ships on safety concerns in 2012.

Vale’s iron ore mines are located in Brazil and are geographically much farther away from China compared to mines of other majors like Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton which are concentrated in Australia.

The Valemax ships are ultra-large vessels, which have a capacity of 400,000 dead weight tons (dwt) and lower the transportation costs for Vale by $7 a tonne.

China’s top planning body, the National Reform and Development Commission said in a statement on Friday that the Valemax ships will be allowed to dock at the ports of Qingdao, Dalian, Tangshan Caofeidian and Ningbo.

Brazil’s Vale is the world’s biggest supplier of iron ore.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff will meet her Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the 7th BRICS Summit in Russia next week.

Brazil supplied 70.89 million tonnes of iron ore to China in the first five months of the year amounting to 18.7 per cent of the total.

 

 

TBP and Agencies