Vale launches Brazilian sand business from iron ore tailings

Vale launches Agera to scale up the sale of sand from iron ore tailings.

Agera will be based in Minas Gerais, Brazil, and will receive sand from tailings generated by Vale's iron ore operations in the state, and promote its commercialisation and distribution.

Vale says the new company will also invest in research and development of new solutions.

The miner says it started producing 'Sustainable Sand' in 2021 after seven years of research. Since, ~900,000t have been sent to construction and road paving. Vale expects to sell 1Mt in 2023 and 2.1Mt by 2024.

Established a year ago, under the name of Co-Log, Agera projects annual sales revenue of $3.6mln by 2023. It has seven customer service points and stocks material in the states of Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo.

The company has contracts with seven road hauliers and three rail freight providers and currently serves more than 80 manufacturing units in seven segments: concrete, precast, mortar, artifacts, cement, textured paints and pavement. It is looking to expand operations into other applications, such as red ceramics.

Vale explains that the sand comes from the tailings after the wet processing of iron ore - currently less than 30% of their operation. These are basically silican and iron oxides, Vale notes.

The sand has been produced at the Brucutu mine in Minas Gerais since 2021. Last year, the company began small-scale production at the Viga mine and in the coming months it plans to start production at the Cauê mine, in Itabira.

The mining company says that in Brazil, around 330Mt of sand are used every year in construction and industrial processes, and that extracting it from riverbeds often exceeds natural replenishment.

According to Vale, in 2022, the University of Queensland and the University of Geneva released a study that found sand from iron ore production can reduce both 'predatory extraction' of sand and mining waste.