BHP Billiton to book up to $1.3 billion provision for Brazil disaster

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - BHP Billiton said on Thursday it would book a provision of between $1.1 billion and $1.3 billion in its annual results to cover costs of the dam disaster in November at the Samarco iron ore mine in Brazil. It said the provision partly reflected uncertainty on when Samarco, its iron ore joint venture with Brazil's Vale, would resume operations. BHP Billiton is also providing a further $134 million to help compensate people hit by the dam spill and providing a short-term loan of up to $116 million to Samarco. "The safe restart of the Samarco operations remains an important priority, along with the restructure of Samarco's debt," BHP said. (Reporting by Sonali Paul; Editing by David Gregorio)