Casa de Pedra mine is a hematite-rich iron deposit of an early proterozoic banded iron formation in Brazil’s Iron Ore Quadrangle (Quadrilátero Ferrífero).

Casa de Pedra is an open pit mine located in the city of Congonhas, in the state of Minas Gerais, approximately 80 km south of the city of Belo Horizonte and 360 km north of the city of Rio de Janeiro.

Iron ore at Casa de Pedra is currently excavated by a fleet of hydraulic shovels and wheel loaders and then hauled by a fleet of trucks with an installed annual run of mine capacity of approximately 120 million tons.

The extraction of iron ore begins with the drilling of rocks. Explosives are then placed into the rocks for fragmentation.

Excavators and wheel loaders remove iron ore from Casa de Pedra and dump it onto off-road trucks, which transport the ore to the crushing facilities. Overburden removed is transported to special piles distributed across the mine.

The iron ore is processed in treatment facilities, which have an installed capacity of 33 million tons of products per year (a sum of the central plant, mobile plants and Pires treatment facilities).

Casa de Pedra mine supplies all of iron ore needs, except pellets, and produces lump ore, sinter feed and pellet feed fines with high iron content.