Vale CFO denies miner’s top managers were aware of dam risk report
Collapsed facility at Brumadinho was rated as being twice more likely to fail than the maximum level of risk tolerated under internal guidelines
Rio de Janeiro — The senior management at Brazilian miner Vale were never shown internal security documents indicating that its dam at Brumadinho was at risk of collapse, the company’s CFO said on Tuesday. The CFO, Luciano Siani, was asked about the management’s knowledge of the internal documents at a news conference a day after Reuters reported on them. The report, dated October 3 2018, classified the dam at Brumadinho — which collapsed in late January in one of the deadliest mining disasters in decades — as being twice more likely to fail than the maximum level of risk tolerated under internal guidelines. Asked whether the company’s senior management had seen the report, Siani said: “No.” “There was a lot of controversy about this recommendation to pass technical details to senior management,” Siani said at the company’s headquarters in Rio de Janeiro. “If a mechanic and a pilot detect a problem, they have to have the autonomy to take immediate decisions in the field, and if you ...
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