The Brazilian Mining Institute (Ibram) raised its forecast for investments in Brazil's five-year mineral sector to US$32.5 billion between 2020 and 2024, compared to US$27.5 billion estimated for the previous period, from 2019 to 2023. An increase of more than 18% in investments in mining in the period.
Of this amount, US$ 2.3 billion should be directed to the safety of tailings dams, decommissioning and decharacterization.
The institute presented the sector's numbers to the press last week during a press conference by the president of the Board of Directors, Wilson Brumer, and the executive president, Flávio Penido. "This demonstrates thestrong recovery of the sector and prospects for increased investments," said Penido, who also highlighted good prospects for mineral exploration in the country.
According to him, mineral research will take a leap from 2020 onwards, reversing the downward trend observed in previous years. This, according to him, is mainly due to the policies adopted by the National Mining Agency (ANM) this year, which aim to expand mining activity and the automatic approval of research requests, if the agency does not grant a response within 120 days.
"This ANM rule will not only speed up the processes of releasing research, but points out that the agency is seeking to have its processes digitized and with deadlines. In the past, at the DNPM (an agency extinguished with the creation of the ANM) we had difficulty in achieving speed in mining projects," said Flávio Penido, president of Ibram.
This is aconditioning factor to attract new investments and boost the geological research segment, where many small companies operate. According to the data presented, in recent years the number of research applications filed and research permits released has been falling.
In the case of research requests, the total fell from 18,505 in 2016 to 10,674 last year. As for permits, there was a reduction from 9,569 in 2017 to 7,210 in 2019. On the other hand, mining concessions increased from 206 in 2017 to 497 in 2019.
The Institute also presented data on the value of mineral production in 2019, mineral exports and the trade balance, pointing out that the sector's revenue grew 39.2% last year compared to 2018, totaling R$ 153.4 billion, against R$ 110.2 billion in 2018. In dollars, the growth was 29.3%, totaling US$ 38.9 billion in 2019 against US$ 30.1 billion in the previous year.
The main responsible for the increase was iron ore, which, although it registered lower physical production, improved the average export prices. The average price per ton in 2019, according to Ibram, was US$ 93.00 compared to US$ 69.00 in 2018. The mineral trade balance had an increase of 12.96%, totaling US$ 24.26 billion, which is equivalent to 52% of the Brazilian trade balance. In 2018, the mineral balance had been US$ 21.47 billion, equivalent to 36.6% of the Brazilian balance.
Check below the main data from recent years compared to the current forecasts made by IBRAM:
» Brazilian mining exports
2018 – 409 million tons and revenues of US$ 30 billion
2019 – 359 million tons and revenues of US$ 32.5 billion
» How much revenue went up in 2019
Iron 9.73%
Gold 27.73%
Ferroniobium 12.9%
Manganese 18.92%
Copper 14.64%
» Investments in the sector (forecast)
2018 to 2022 – $19.5 billion
2019 to 2023 – $27.5 billion
2020 to 2024 – $32.5 billion
Sources: IBRAM/ Brasil Mineral