The Environment and Sustainability Department of Para has issued Vale with an installation licence, paving the way for Serra Leste to resume operations in December.

Serra Leste is expected to produce between four- and five-million tonnes a year in 2021, reaching its full capacity of six-million tonnes a year in 2022.

The expansion project, which consists of the adaptation and repowering of the existing plant, will allow a capacity upgrade to 10-million tonnes a year, with startup expected in the first semester of 2023.

Serra Leste was halted in January 2019, after reaching the limit of the area previously licensed for the extraction of iron-ore.