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Brazil's Rio Doce Valley Project

A Study in Frustration and Perseverance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Edward J. Rogers
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Extract

Perhaps the most interesting, and certainly the most complicated, of the many activities relating to Brazilian iron ore development are those associated with the Rio Doce Valley. This valley, which lies about 225 miles north of Rio de Janeiro, is a natural corridor from the sea to the rich Itabira ore fields in the state of Minas Gerais. Its value as a possible outlet for Itabira ore was noted as early as the first quarter of the nineteenth century by such figures as Cámara Bittencourt, Intendente General of the Diamantina district and Baron Wiihelm von Eschwege, a minerologist employed by the Portuguese government.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , April 1959 , pp. 123 - 140
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1959

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References

1 Pimenta, Dermeval José, O minério de ferro na economía nacional (Rio de Janeiro: Gráfica Editora Aurora, Ltda., 1950), p. 48.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p. 49.

3 The gold and diamond strikes of the eighteenth century had brought people into the area.

4 “The Iron Ores of Brazil,” Bulletin of the Pan American Union, No. 32 (April, 1911), pp. 652-655, citing Derby, Orville, Director of the Servico Geológico e Mineralógico do Brasil in The Iron Resources of the World, Vol. 2 (Stockholm, Sweden, 1910).Google Scholar

5 By the railroad's directors.

6 Pimenta, op. cit., p. 54.

7 The Argentine railroads, as well as several Brazilian railroads, were built almost entirely by the British.

8 Pimenta, op cit., p. 56.

9 Nilo Pecanha was President of Brazil at this time and Francisco Sá, a mining engineer, was his Minister of Transportation.

10 Pimenta, op. cit., p. 62.

11 Gauld, Charles, “The Last Titan,” Brazilian Business, XXXII, No. 11 (1952), 24–30.Google Scholar

12 Farquhar died in 1953 at the age of 88.

13 Pimenta, op. cit,, p. 63.

14 Ibid., p. 64.

15 The contract signed for the Brazilian government by President Epitácio Pessoa and J. Pires de Rio, his Minister of Transportation.

16 Pimenta, op. cit., pg. 65.

17 Ibid.

18 United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. “The Brazilian Iron and Steel Industry,” by W. L. Schurz. Trade Information Bulletin, No. 6 (March 25, 1922). Washington: Government Printing Office, 1922, p. 4.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 Gauld, op. cit., p. 29.

22 Bernardes’ state Secretary of Agriculture and Industry, Clodimiro de Oliveira, an authority on Brazil's iron resources, was also hostile to this Itabira project.

23 United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Schurz, op. cit., p. 5.

24 Decree-law #5,568, December 11, 1928.

25 The Central do Brasil Railroad made contact with the Vitoria a Minas at Nova Era in 1936, thus opening the ores of Itabira to eventual domestic consumption by industry in the cities of Minas Gerais, Sao Paulo and other such industrial centers in central Brazil.

26 At the rate of twenty cruzeiros to the dollar, this would be approximately $75,000,000.

27 Decree-law #1,507, August 11, 1939.

28 Pimenta, op. cit., p. 68.

1 Roughly about $116,000 at the 1939 rate of exchange.

2 Dermeval José Pimenta, O Minerio de Ferro na Economia Nacional (Rio de Janeiro: Gráfica Editora Aurora, Ltda., 1950), p. 48.

3 This was at the then rate of 1 franc for every 494 cruzeiros.

“This was six per cent in gold on capital invested in such construction to a total of Cr. $30,000 per kilometer.

4 Pimenta, op. cit., p. 72.

5 These included the Bilbao iron ore fields of Spain, the Lorraine iron ore deposits of France and the Kiruna deposits of Sweden. France was conquered. Sweden remained neutral but its Norwegian ore-exporting port fell to the Germans in June, 1940. Spain, under the control of General Francisco Franco was sympathetic to, and cooperated with, the Nazis.

6 Decree-Law #4,352, June 1, 1942.

7 Pimenta, op. cit., pp. 73-77.

8 Denburg, Joseph K. Van, “Itabira is Breaking Its Bottlenecks,” Engineering and Mining Journal, CLIII, No. 7 (July 19, 1952), 84.Google Scholar

9 Ibid.

10 About $11,000,000.

11 The first shipment of iron ore on the Vitoria a Minas Railway was by the Companhia Brasileira de Mineracáo e Siderurgia in the year 1940. In this same year, the ship “Modesta” loaded Rio Doce Valley ore for the first time for a foreign state; some 5,740 tons for Great Britain. The above company operated only one more year, in 1941, and then was supplanted by the Companhia Vale do Rio Doce in 1942.

12 Pimenta, op. cit., p. 87.

13 Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, S.A.,” O observador, ano XVIII, No. 208 (Junho, 1953), p. 80.

14 Ibid., p. 79.

15 Ibid., p. 81.

16 A lower quality type ore.

17 “Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, S.A.,” op.cit., p. 80.

18 The company was capitalized in 1942 at Cr. $200.000.000,00.

19 “Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, S.A.,” op. cit., p. 85.