Brazilian mining group Vale has been negotiating with potters who blockaded its Moatize coal mine, in the Tete province of Mozambique, for about 24 hours in the middle of last month, the Mozambique newspaper O País reported recently.

The potters were complaining that the compensation that they had received for being moved off the mine site had been inadequate. (Before the development of the Moatize project by Vale, the potters had produced clay bricks on the property that is now occupied by the mine. See Mining Weekly April 26, 2013.) At that time, Vania Somavilla, the Vale group executive director for human resources, health and safety, sustainability and energy, had said in Brazil that the company was always open to talks with communities, but that a blockade was not the best way to reach a solution.

According to the newspaper, government authorities were acting as intermediaries in the talks between the company and the potters community. O País also reported that Vale’s objective was to achieve a joint solution and develop initiatives to improve the production processes, and consequently the income, of the potters and micro businesspeople. This is intended to integrate the potters community into the new economic environment in the area and eliminate the dispute between that community and the mining group.

Separately, Vale reported that it had invested more than $10-million in education in Mozambique last year alone. The group also announced that 56 young Mozambicans had, last month, completed eight months of specialist training in Brazil, and that 50 more would start such training this month. The 56 were trained in the mechanical maintenance of equipment and would now take up posts at the Moatize operation.

The trainees spent their first three months in Brazil with the equipment suppliers and then had five months of practical experience at three of Vale’s units – Itabira and Brucutu, in Minas Gerais state, and Carajás, in Pará state. The next batch of 50 trainees will also spend three months of instruction with equipment suppliers and then have three months of practical experience at Vale’s operations at Carajás and Sossego (also in Pará).

“Mining is still a recent activity in Mozambique,” pointed out Vale human resources director: Africa and Asia-Pacific Paula Eller. “In Brazil, the [trainee] professionals (skilled workers) learn with colleagues who have greater experience and good knowledge of Vale’s operational practices, including health and safety. On their return to their country, these Mozambicans act as transmitters of this knowledge, reaching a greater number of professionals.”

Vale started training programmes in Mozambique in 2009 and, since then, has trained more than 800 Mozambican technical specialists, of whom 186 received training in Brazil. These training programmes have covered the fields of mining, machinery, maintenance and locomotive driving. They have been conducted in cooperation with with Mozambique’s Higher Transport and Communications Institute (Instituto Superior de Transportes e Comunicações) and the Ports and Railways Company of Mozambique (better known as CFM).

Earlier, the mining group revealed that the heavy rains in Mozambique early this year had resulted in a decrease of 30.4% in Moatize’s production during the first quarter of this year, compared with the previous quarter. This had decreased the group’s global coal production by 10.2% quarter-on-quarter. Moatize produced 417 000 t of metallurgical coal and 256 000 t of thermal coal during the first quarter of this year, compared with 648 000 t of the former and 319 000 t of the latter during the last quarter of 2012.

Further, the ramp-up to Phase 1 full production (11-million tons a year, mostly composed of metallurgical coal) was being delayed by a lack of capacity on the Sena railway, which links Tete with the coastal harbour city of Beira. This constraint is expected to be overcome when the alternative railway route to Nacala becomes operational during the second half of next year.