The current globalized world demands more and more that companies concentrate efforts in the way of adapt themselves to new environments, so that they can compete even with great international conglomerates. In this sense, Vale do Rio Doce Company - CVRD comes working intensely in the accomplishment of an internationalization process, seeking to become one of the largest diversified mining companies of the world until the end of this decade. As it starts from a methodology to assist in this process, CVRD developed a model for the evaluation of countries with potential for the expansion of its business. This work aimed confront the model of environmental analysis used by CVRD with the existing theory, seeking to supply parameters for the Company, so that it can improve more and more its evaluation, contributing, in this way, for its decisive process. After the comparison, it was verified that the model of environmental analysis adopted by the Vale contemplates in an exhaustive way, the main criteria of evaluation necessary for this kind of decision taken. However, the accomplished analyses, by the reason of they concentrate in specific countries, do not consider the evaluation of a portfolio of countries, what would enable the obtainment of a set of a more diversified strategic options.