Anglo American AAL.LN PLC is finally shipping iron ore from its troubled Minas-Rio operation in southeastern Brazil, after years of delays and cost overruns that tripled the project’s initial budget and brought turmoil to the mining company.

The timing, however, couldn’t be worse: Iron-ore prices have plummeted in recent months to their lowest levels in five years, and analysts are increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for a recovery. While Minas-Rio’s operating costs are low enough to be competitive in such an environment, the same can’t be said for the $8.8 billion it cost to build.

“Really it’s not going to be very easy to get a return on the capital we invested in Minas-Rio,” said Paulo Castellari, head of Anglo American’s Brazilian iron-ore division, at a news conference Monday.

London-based Anglo American put 80,000 tons of Brazilian iron ore on a vessel bound for China on Oct. 25, in what Chief Executive Mark Cutifani described as a “great victory for our team.” Two more similar-sized shipments are expected to go out in December, and the company plans to gradually bring the mine to its full capacity of 26.5 million tons a year over the next 18 to 20 months.�