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Welcome back to your Friday mining news recap. Tailings dams have been the talk of the town this week: Peruvian regulators investigated a potential tailings spill at Southern Copper’s Cuajone, investors backed away from Vale, and Brazilian authorities arrested eight more employees in relation to the dam collapse.

Montreal engineering firm SNC-Lavalin got a rough start to the week when it cut its per-share earnings target for 2019 on Monday after failing to reach an agreement with a client in a dispute over a Latin American mining project. SNC, currently at the heart of a scandal that has rocked Parliament Hill, was further hit on Wednesday when ratings firm S&P Global cut its credit rating to BBB-, the lowest investment-grade rating it offers.

After investigating a “greenish solution” flowing from Southern Copper Corp’s Cuajone mine into a local river following heavy rains, Peru’s environmental regulator said on Tuesday that the mine had not experienced a tailings spill. The regulator said it was continuing to supervise the operations.

Goldcorp and Barrick both posted fourth-quarter losses due to impairment charges this week. Goldcorp reported a net $3.879-billion impairment, due to the difference between Newmont’s US$10-billion acquisition price and the book value of Goldcorp’s shareholder equity, and a net loss for the quarter of $3.9 billion. Barrick reported net losses of US$1.2 billion in the fourth quarter, partly due to US$900-million net impairment charges on Lagunas Norte in Peru and Veladero in Argentina.

First Quantum Minerals reported a profit of $198 million in the fourth quarter, and record production of 158,000 tonnes of copper in 2018. The company also announced that it begun processing first ore at its Cobre Panama plant.

In lithium news, Nemaska Lithium reported on Wednesday that it expects it will need an additional $375 million to complete construction at its Whabouchi project, and meet the drawdown conditions of its streaming agreement with Orion Mine Finance and its senior secured bonds. The company said the reassessment was based on finalized agreements and bids for work, rather than the estimates that it based its NI 43-101 report on. The company’s stock plummeted on the news to $0.30 per share, from $0.55 per share.

On a lighter note, yesterday was Valentine’s Day and love was in the air. Mining Magazine had a lovely V-Day lookback at the iconic mining romance between United States President (and mining engineer) Herbert Hoover and his polyglot activist first lady, Lou Henry Hoover. Among their many accomplishments, the two translated Georgius Agricola’s De Re Metallica, the “bible” of miners and metallurgists for hundreds of years. On Twitter, Komatsu shared some adorable (and groan-worthy) mining Valentine’s Day cards.

Speaking of Valentine’s Day, Quebec graphite miner Nouveau Monde Graphite announced it was officially going steady with commodity trader Traxys Group. The companies’ new offtake and marketing agreement will give Traxys 200 tonnes of graphite concentrate per year from Nouveau Monde’s Matawinie project in 2019 and 2020. Once the mine goes into full production, projected for 2021, Traxys will market 25,000 tonnes per year, dependent on demand and production capacity. On that note, what a great time to read our project profile of Matawinie, which is now online.

Eight Vale employees and four people from German consulting group Tüv Süd were arrested in the criminal investigation into the Córrego de Feijão tailings dam collapse that has killed at least 166 people, according to the BBC. Two of those arrested were Vale executives.

The arrests come as, according to Reuters, investors experience growing concern that tailings dams worldwide pose too great a risk to investments. Investors like Swedish bank Nordea and Robeco have blocked investment in Vale, and European asset manager DWS is re-evaluating the positions it holds in the miner on behalf of its institutional investors.