Halted Moatize coking coal shipment resumes, says Vale

SAO PAULO (Scrap Monster) : The Brazilian mining giant Vale announced Tuesday that it has resumed the shipment of coking coal at Moatize mine in Mozambique ending the two-day stoppage by brickmakers.

The brickmakers had blocked the Sena railroads out of the mine with scrap metal and stones, temporarily halting the Vale coal shipments. The brickmakers shifted from a mining concession area had been demanding compensation for lost production.

The company officials claim to have paid three groups of brickmakers with a compensation of nearly $ 1,980 per discarded oven and are not willing to pay anymore. However around 63 brickmakers are still awaiting payments. Vale declined to comment on the volume of coal shipments affected by the strike. The brickmakers withdrew the protest on assurance of further negotiations by Vale.

The Moatize Mine in Tete Province, Mozambique has been producing coal since July 2011. Sena Railroad is a 575-kilometre line that connects Moatize to the Port of Beira, in the south of Mozambique, with a transport capacity of 6 million metric tonnes of coal per year.