From Bloomberg via Mineweb:
Vale lifts iron ore output as price drop hits mines
Vale aims to lift production to record levels in an attempt to win back market share while rivals are hurt by falling prices.
Vale SA, the world’s largest iron- ore producer, aims to increase production to record levels in an attempt to win back market share while higher-cost competitors are hurt by falling prices, said Executive Director for Ferrous and Strategy Jose Carlos Martins.
The Rio de Janeiro-based company can produce as much as 350 million metric tons next year, 40 million tons more than this year, Martins said in a June 14 interview. Vale is sticking with an official target of 326 million tons given in December, the press department said by e-mail yesterday.
“Forty million is something we believe is possible,” Martins, 63, said from the company’s Rio headquarters. “There is space for Vale to grow by recovering market share and by kind of squeezing high-cost producers.”
Vale is seeking to stem a slide in market share since 2007 after its biggest rivals, Rio Tinto Plc and BHP Billiton Ltd., increased output at a faster pace. While Rio Tinto and BHP, the second- and third-largest iron-ore miners, raised production of the steel-making raw material by 37 percent and 43 percent, respectively, from 2007 to 2012, Vale’s output rose 5.5 percent in the period amid environmental permit delays and aging mines.Vale has a ~24% market share.
Startups Squeezed
The Brazilian miner will weather lower iron-ore prices better than startups that began when prices were higher, Martins said. Some mines aren’t profitable when prices fall below current levels because of lower ore quality and scale, he said. Prices have fallen as much as 31 percent since February....MORE
Also see also April's:
Mining: "BHP to Go Hell-for-leather on Output"
