MacroBusiness Access Subscriber Only Content Vale is out with its Q2 production report. According to Bloomie, it’s a disaster: The world’s second-largest iron producer churned out 75.7 million metric tons in the second quarter compared with the 78 million-ton average estimate among analysts tracked by Bloomberg. The result was still up from both the previous three months and the Covid-impacted year-ago period. In reality, it looks pretty darn good. From Vale: There are 970 words left in this subscriber-only article. Rio de Janeiro, July 19th, 2021 – Vale S.A. (“Vale”) completed another quarter of iron ore production growth (+11%q/q) and achieving a current capacity of 330 Mtpy, which if sustained could allow for an average of 1 Mt per day production in 2H21, due to the favorable seasonality from better weather conditions in the period. The unmanned train operation in Timbopeba is performing well and the maintenance of ship loader 6 (CN6) at the Ponta da Madeira Maritime Terminal was executed as scheduled, causing no impact in this year’s expected shipments. On Base Metals, the first ore production on its Reid Brook deposit at the Voisey’s Bay Mine Expansion Project was an important achievement to the continued delivery of quality, predictable and responsibly sourced material to market.