Vale Oman output hits new record

Conrad Prabhu -

MUSCAT, MARCH 1 -

Vale Oman Pelletizing Company, the Omani-Brazilian joint venture behind the world-scale pelletizing plant and stockyard at Suhar Port, has reported a record production of 2.453 million tons of iron ore pellets — the raw material for steel mills in the Gulf and Middle East — in Q4 2016.

Output for the quarter surged 63.5 per cent versus figures for the corresponding quarter of 2015, a period that also included a maintenance shutdown, the mining conglomerate said in a newly published report of the 2016 financial results.

The output increase lifted the pelletising plant’s total production for 2016 to 8.552 million tonnes, entailing a 5.6 per cent increase over the previous year’s production of 8.163 million tonnes.

Significantly, Vale Oman’s record Q4 production also helped lift the mining conglomerate’s global pellet output to 12.6 million tonnes, which was billed as a quarterly record for the parent company.

Launching operations in 2011 with an investment of around $2 billion, the giant facility features two pelletising trains each with a capacity to produce 4.5 million tonnes per annum of direct reduction pellets (DRI).

Iron ore for the plant is shipped in from Vale’s Brazilian mines by Very Large Ore Carriers (VLOCs) of a capacity of around 400,000 metric tonnes. The Valemax vessels use a 1.4km long deep water jetty at Sohar to discharge their feedstock, while smaller bulk carriers ship the DRI pellets to markets around the Middle East.

Suhar also serves as a major distribution centre for the Brazilian miner in the Middle East. The Sohar Industrial Complex, anchored by the pelletising plant, features a massive stockyard with a capacity to handle around 40 million tonnes of raw iron ore to supply steel plants across the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, including India.

Vale Oman is 70 per cent owned by Vale SA, with Oman Oil Company — the strategic investment arm of the Omani government — holding the balance 30 per cent.