RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian federal prosecutors in the country's state of Para have asked a court to suspend operations at Vale's Onça Puma nickel project in the Brazilian Amazon, alleging Vale failed to meet obligations to two Indian tribes in the region.
The mine suspension is part of a lawsuit that the prosecutors have filed against Vale, the Para-state environmental secretariat and Brazil's Indian affairs foundation on behalf of the Xikrin and Kayapó tribes, the prosecutors said on their website.
Vale is the world's second-largest producer of nickel, a product primarily used to protect steel from corrosion. Its $2.65 billion Onça Puma mine began full operations in the third quarter of 2011 and is still at a start-up phase. In the first quarter of 2012, it produced 4,000 metric tonnes (4,409.2 tons), or 6.3 percent of Vale's output.
