Brazil's Vale to stick to asset sales despite rise in prices

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian miner Vale SA (VALE5.SA) said on Tuesday it will stick to a plan to sell $10 billion (7 billion pound) of core assets by next year in order to reduce debt, despite a recent rise in commodity prices.

The miner did, however, reduce forecasted sales of non-core assets to a range of $4 billion to $5 billion for 2016, down from $4 billion to $5.5 billion. The change follows Vale's failed sale of a stake in bauxite producer Mineração Rio do Norte.

In the presentation to analysts published on Vale's website the company did not mention fertiliser assets as a likely non-core sale for 2016, a change from other recent presentations.

The world's largest producer of iron ore has not said what core assets it plans to sell, only explaining that no assets were deemed off the table.

Vale said it expects the global nickel market to be in a 50,000 ton deficit this year, but added stocks of the base metal remained high.

The company said it sees the cost of producing a tonne of iron ore and delivering it to China falling to $23.60 in 2018, from $28 in the first quarter.

(Reporting by Stephen Eisenhammer and Marta Nogueira; Editing by Andrew Hay)