Vale buys Ligga iron ore stake for $190M 

Vale (NYSE: VALE) confirmed it’s acquiring a 30% interest in Ligga to increase iron ore production, after the country’s stock exchange questioned why the deal hadn’t been disclosed to investors.  

The offtake agreement includes about $190 million in investment and an exclusive offtake arrangement giving Vale the right to purchase all of Ligga’s sinter feed production, Vale said in a market notice on Tuesday. The transaction is intended to support an expansion that would quadruply Ligga’s output to 8 million tonnes a year from about 2 million tonnes. 

The deal will increase flexibility of Vale’s Northern System portfolio with lower capital intensity and integration into the existing logistics infrastructure, Vale’s executive vice president of finance and investor relations, Marcelo Feriozzi Bacci, said in the notice. 

Ferro Sul

Ligga operates the Ferro Sul mine, located in the Carajás region of Pará state in northern Brazil, home to some of the world’s largest iron ore operations. The expansion would give Vale long-term access to additional high-quality ore while using infrastructure already connected to its northern Brazilian operations. 

Ligga plans to start expanded operations in mid-2028 and will be able to export its production globally, which would have been more challenging before this agreement took place, CNN Brasil reported. Production will now be transported along the Carajás Railroad, about 10 km from the site to the Ponta da Madeira Maritime Terminal in São Luís, State of Maranhão. 

Vale already produces about 330 million tonnes of iron ore anually from its two Brazilian operations. This agreement secures long-term access to additional volumes of high-quality iron ore.  

Shares in Vale were flat Tuesday afternoon in New York at $14.16 apiece, valuing the company at $63.1 billion. 

Regulator query 

Vale’s market notice followed a request from B3, Brazil’s stock exchange, for clarification after São Paulo-based InfoMoney, one of the country’s largest financial news outlets, reported the transaction a day earlier. The expansion project would receive about $97 million in investments, InfoMoney said, adding that Ligga’s iron ore reserves are estimated to be 1.5 billion tonnes. 

Vale should’ve disclosed the information before it appeared in the media, as it could impact trading decisions and share prices, the exchange said. 

The miner argued that due to the nature of the transactions, leadership understood it didn’t constitute a material fact that needed to be announced to investors. It also said it didn’t identify any atypical fluctuations in the quotation, price or trading volume of its securities that would warrant disclosure under the applicable regulations.