Anglo American plans one of Brazil’s biggest water reuse projects

Anglo American (LON: AAL) wants to reuse water in a pipeline hundreds of kilometres long used to transport iron ore from its Minas Rio operation in Brazil in what could be the country’s largest conservation project of its kind. 

The 529-km pipeline running east from Conceição do Mato Dentro municipality in southeastern Brazil to the port at São João da Barra may carry as much as 0.3 cubic metre per second of reused water, Anglo said in a recent news release. 

Anglo saves the water by partnering with the Port of Acu to divert effluent, which would otherwise be discarded into the ocean, to be used by other local industrial plants. Anglo and the port began testing the process in September. 

About 2,000 cubic metres of water were reused in low-impact operations such as sprinkling coal piles to show how the effluent can replace new high-quality water, Anglo said. 

“The company continues to work to encourage and build an increasingly healthy environment,” Cristiano Cobo, Anglo’s technical and sustainability director in Brazil, said in the release.  “We have consistent goals in our sustainable mining plan and we work solidly to achieve them.” 

Anglo pipes its iron ore in water through 29 municipalities then filters out the ore for overseas shipments at the port. The remaining effluent has been treated and released into the ocean. Now Anglo is preparing to reuse 100 cubic metres an hour in the project’s first phase. 

Diverting slag

Besides recycling effluent, the Brazilian arm of the multinational mining company is using waste ferronickel slag in road expansion works in the central state of Goiás.

The new strategy, in partnership with the firm Ecovias do Araguaia, aims to find a new use for a waste product, reduce the environmental impact of the Barro Alto and Codemin operations and shrink the area needed to store waste.

Anglo said 10,000 tons of ferronickel slag were used for asphalt paving this year including the GO-356 highway. It plans to expand the program to 500,000 tons within two years, it said.

The company also has other water conservation, land preservation and planting programs in the country. It gave US$5 million to the Amazon Protected Areas Program which covers 600,000 sq. km of the rainforest.