Sabrina Lorenzi – Reuters, 06/26/2012
MOJU, Brazil, June 26 (Reuters) – Vale, the world’s second-largest mining company, may keep its natural gas exploration assets if it succeeds in selling its Brazilian oil assets in order to guarantee energy supplies for its mines, a company official said on Tuesday.
The Rio de Janeiro-based mining company, the world’s largest iron ore producer, is selling its oil assets because they require too much capital to develop, Vania Somavilla, the company’s director of sustainability, told reporters at an event in Moju, in Brazil’s northern state of Para.
“Oil exploration is very capital intensive, our focus is natural gas,” she said. “We are reviewing this in a way that will allow us to keep our strategy to maintain investments in the natural gas area.”
