By Brazil Stock Guide — Brazil’s National Mining Agency (ANM) has declined to consider a motion for clarification filed by the Brazilian Mining Institute (Ibram) challenging the decision behind Resolution No. 189/2024, drawing renewed attention to a regulatory dispute that has been unfolding for nearly two years.
In a notice published on Friday, the regulator said the motion was inadmissible because neither the applicable legislation nor its internal rules provide for such a procedure. As a result, Ibram’s request to suspend the effects of the decision was rendered moot. The procedural ruling does not, by itself, overturn a separate court order that suspended the regulation in 2025.
At the heart of the dispute is who has the right to commercially recover valuable minerals from mining tailings and waste rock, particularly when those materials are stored outside the areas covered by the original mining permits. Tailings are residues left after mineral processing, while waste rock consists of material removed during mining operations. Until relatively recently, much of this material was considered to have limited economic value. Technological advances, however, have made it increasingly feasible to recover minerals previously discarded, creating new business opportunities and intensifying competition over their ownership and exploitation.
The controversy dates to Resolution No. 189, issued in November 2024, which amended rules introduced by the ANM in 2021. The regulation imposed additional requirements on the recovery of tailings and waste rock deposited outside the boundaries of existing mining titles. These included reporting the materials in the Annual Mining Report, securing approval under the relevant mining development plans and, where deposits were located on third-party land, establishing a formally registered mining easement. The resolution also restricted the ability to amend certain previously submitted information.
Ibram, an industry association representing some of Brazil’s largest mining companies, including Vale, BHP and Anglo American, challenged the legality of those requirements. The association argued that the ANM had exceeded its regulatory authority by imposing restrictions not established by law. It also maintained that Article 176 of Brazil’s Constitution guarantees mining concession holders ownership of the minerals extracted under their concessions, regardless of where the resulting materials are subsequently stored. In Ibram’s view, new administrative requirements cannot undermine previously established property rights.
The ANM advanced a different interpretation. In its court filings, the regulator argued that the potential for commercial recovery does not automatically make tailings part of the mineral output legally owned by a concession holder. Beyond the legal disagreement lies a commercial conflict: large mining companies are seeking to preserve rights over materials generated by their operations, while smaller operators see opportunities to recover valuable minerals from deposits located outside the original concession areas. The outcome could determine who gains access to mineral resources whose economic value has increased as processing technologies have improved.
On March 31, 2025, a federal court granted Ibram a preliminary injunction suspending Resolution 189/2024. The judge found that the new requirements could represent a substantial change to the existing legal framework, potentially affecting legal certainty and regulatory predictability. The ANM formally complied with the ruling in April but filed an interlocutory appeal with Brazil’s Federal Regional Court for the First Region (TRF-1) on May 15, seeking to overturn the suspension.
Public court records reviewed by Brazil Stock Guide show that the original lawsuit had been awaiting a judicial decision since September 2025. The ANM’s appeal was removed from the court’s hearing calendar that month and referred to the chambers of Federal Appellate Judge Eduardo Martins in December. No subsequent ruling resolving the dispute was identified in the publicly available docket entries reviewed. In January 2026, the ANM also assigned a proceeding involving Vale and Aiga Mineração to its board of directors for a reassessment of the decision that gave rise to Resolution 189/2024.
The ANM’s latest notice adds another administrative chapter to the controversy without settling the underlying question. The regulator declined to examine Ibram’s motion on procedural grounds, while the substantive legal dispute remains without a confirmed resolution in the court records reviewed. Until a definitive ruling or regulatory settlement emerges, uncertainty will persist over the extent of mining companies’ rights to materials generated by their operations and the circumstances under which third parties may recover them. For Brazil’s mining industry, the implications extend well beyond mineral ownership, touching on investment decisions, competition, regulatory certainty and the economic recovery of resources once treated simply as waste.
Leave a Reply