Anglo American (LSE: AAL) themultinational mining company and the worlds largest producer of platinum announced this morning the the first ore on ship (FOOS) from itsMinas-Rio iron ore project in Brazil, saying that it had come in within the targetted budget. Anglo Americans share price opened slightly up, but has since fallen back to stand 0.4% downon the day so far.
The company said that its firstcargo from Minas-Rio more than 80,000 tonnes of iron ore, destined for the pellet feed market was loaded onto a chartered vessel at the Au export terminal in Rio de Janeiro state and that the ship is now headingto customers in China.
The CEO of Anglo Americans Iron Ore Brazil operations,Paulo Castellari, said that the company is nowfocused on achieving a safe ramp-up to a capacity of 26.5m tonnes per year over the next 18-20 months. It will also have to concentrate on theregular cycle of licence and permit renewal that the move tooperational mode will require.
Commenting on the news,CEOMark Cutifani said
Delivering FOOS from Minas-Rio is a remarkable achievement from our team and is one of our three major commitments to our shareholders this year. Minas-Rio has an exceptional resource in terms of scale and ore quality, producing some of the highest quality pellet feed available for our customers across the Middle East and Asia, providing us with a clear competitive advantage. We believe that the outlook for our particular premium product remains attractive, despite the current weakness in the iron ore price, and that the fully integrated operation of Minas-Rio from mine to port will enable us to sustain our low operating cost position over the long term.
At 1,303p, Anglo Americans share price is down 13% on this time last year, compared with a 5% fall in the FTSE 100 index. And the longer-term story makes for even less happy reading, withAnglo American down 45% over the past five years, during which time the FTSE 100 has risen 22%.
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