BHP Billiton Chairman Jac Nasser and CEO Andrew Mackenzie speak on the incident at Samarco

The tragedy at Samarco in Brazil has shaken everyone in the company and reinforced our commitment to the highest safety standards in our industry. Early in my career, I worked and lived in Brazil, and I visited the state of Minas Gerais many times, so for me, this is also personal. As Andrew Mackenzie said to the people of Mariana and the people of Brazil, we are 100% committed to do everything we can to support Samarco and make this right. We'll do this by working hand in hand with Vale and Samarco. We're deeply sorry for all of those who have been impacted by this tragedy, in particular for the friends and families of those who died and those who are missing, as well as those who have lost their homes and feel uncertain about their future. As soon as we were notified about the dam failure, we offered our full support to the Samarco team and to the local authorities. Andrew and the head of Iron Ore, Jimmy Wilson, flew to the site last week to work out what assistance we and our joint venture partner Vale could provide. Andrew will talk to you in more detail later about the practical assistance being provided. Andrew has held several media and investor briefings, including one in Brazil, and we have been posting regular updates on our website. We're committed to continuing to provide you with the updates on a regular basis. While it will be some time before we fully understand what happened on November the 5th, let me give you some background. Samarco started operations more than 30 years ago, mining and processing iron ore in the mountains of Minas Gerais, a state in Brazil. Samarco, which employs over 6,000 people in Brazil, has been recognized as a leader in the Brazilian mining industry for its safety performance. BHP Billiton and Vale each have a 50% ownership in the joint venture. Vale is a Brazilian-based global mining company, one of the largest miners in the world. The iron ore from the mine is crushed and piped to the coastal port of Ubu. The residues from the crushing process are called tailings and are made up of sand and iron ore. It's standard industry practice for the tailings mixed with water to be stored in large dams. There are in fact over 3,000 tailings dams around the world. At the Samarco operations, the tailings were stored in a series of three tier dams. On November the 5th, for reasons that are being investigated, the middle dam failed and caused the dam below it to overflow. The tailings flooded the community of Bento Rodriguez and affected a number of other communities. The tailings have impacted the Rio Doce basin several hundred kilometers downstream. Tragically, at this stage we believe 11 people are dead and eight remain missing. The emergency response teams evacuated over 600 people and provided them with temporary accommodation. Samarco has provided affected communities with water and food. In addition, it has supplied 10 helicopters for use by the authorities in the response effort. Samarco, as part of a preliminary commitment to the Brazilian prosecutors, has guaranteed the allocation of funds totaling 260 million US dollars (1 billion Brazilian reais) to an emergency fund for community support and rebuilding. Samarco will manage this emergency fund in conjunction with the Public Ministry. Your board has established a separate subcommittee of the board to oversee the governance of BHP Billiton's response to the events in Brazil, including the emergency fund. Samarco operations were immediately shut down after the tailings dam failure. Mining operations will remain suspended as authorities continue their investigations and Samarco works with the authorities to develop rectification plans. Work to reinforce the dam structures and stabilize the area has commenced, and Samarco is working in conjunction with world-class external experts to develop a plan to address the environmental issues. On behalf of the board and the management team, I commit to you that we will support Samarco with the response effort. I also commit to you that we will find out what went wrong. Together with Vale, we have agreed to commission an external investigation into the collapse of the tailings dam. It will be some time before this investigation concludes, but when it does, you have my commitment that we will publicly release the findings. We will also share the results with other resource companies. We have also brought forward the next review of all tailing dams in which BHP Billiton has an interest.