Replies to post #383 on Vale S. A. (VALE)

[DewDiligence]

…Vale has reported that during fiscal 2013 the company's cash cost of production per metric ton of iron ore was $25…

As a rule of thumb, fully allocated cost per tonne (which includes depreciation and depletion allowances) is about 2x the cash cost, which is why I said in a prior post that $50 was a reasonable estimate. VALE itself mentioned the $50 figure on an investor CC a couple of years ago.

The $42 figure for 2012 cited in #msg-98658507 was an average for VALE’s mining operations in general rather than the IO operations, specifically. Moreover, ceratin costs (e.g. labor) are higher now than they were in 2012.