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The nearly 20% drop came after a plunge of 8% on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, when the Brazilian stock market was closed due to a holiday.
Vale, the world's largest iron ore miner, has seen its reputation tarnished by this deadly accident, the latter involving a company-owned mine in the state of Minas Gerais, southeast Brazil, in a little over three years.
Prior to trading, he announced the suspension of dividend payments to shareholders and executive bonuses.
The Brazilian authorities have separately blocked R $ 11 billion – about $ 3 billion – from Vale 's badets in anticipation of a compensation it will likely have to pay.
A tsunami of toxic sludge pbaded through a dam on January 25 at an iron mine in Vale, near the town of Brumadinho, Minas Gerais. The official toll of the disaster was 60 dead and 202 missing Monday.
In 2015, a dam on another company mine erupted, killing 19 people and causing what was considered the worst environmental disaster Brazil has ever seen.
Vale and its partner BHP are still paying for this accident, with compensation and fines of more than $ 6 billion and ongoing lawsuits.
The company is also mourning the lost staff, with the overwhelming majority of the dead and missing in the Friday disaster being Vale employees.
Many victims were lunching on the site when millions of tons of muddy sludge, a by-product of mining, crossed the dam and engulfed the administrative area in which they were located.
Rescuers also found a company bus buried in mud in which bodies were found.
Profitable company
The dam that erupted was built in 1976 and was being decommissioned. Vale said it successfully pbaded a structural safety inspection four months ago, which has been confirmed by the German company Tuev Sued.
Vale, headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, has a large fund to pay fines, compensation and litigation following the latest disaster.
In 2017, based on the latest annual results available, the company made a profit of $ 5.5 billion for a $ 34 billion business figure.
This net profit was 38% higher than the previous year, proof of a rebound after the sharp drop in commodities in 2015, which forced the company to cut costs.
Luiz Jardim Wanderley, a mining expert at Rio de Janeiro State University, told AFP that "businesses, in this period of falling commodity prices, have tended to reduce their safety budgets. and maintenance ".
He said that out of the 450 dams in the state of Minas Gerais, "we have a relatively high number of questionable dams or in inappropriate conditions".
"Life matters most"
Vale is worth $ 78.7 billion, depending on its market capitalization. This makes it the world's third largest producer, behind BHP and Rio Tinto, two Anglo-Australian groups.
Besides iron ore, which feeds China's appetite, Vale also mines nickel, copper and other metals.
The company employs 76,500 people worldwide and also operates hydropower plants, railways, ports and ships to bring its products to market.
Vale started in Minas Gerais – a major mining state, as its name indicates in Portuguese – in 1942 as a public company called Companhia Vale do Rio Doce. It was privatized in 1997.
On its website, Vale claims to have a "pbadion for man and for the planet".
He says "life matters most" and aspires to "do the right thing".
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