Mining heavyweight Rio Tinto is confident about its expanding copper footprint as rival BHP takes a run at being the world’s largest producer to wire up the energy transition.
Rio has also ruled out new development of uranium at Jabiluka in the Northern Territory, which is also opposed by traditional owners.
“We support the Mirarr people in their strong opposition to the development of Jabiluka and our focus is only on rehabilitation,” chairman Dominic Barton told the annual general meeting in Brisbane on Thursday.
But he was tight-lipped on whether Rio Tinto would compete with BHP for Anglo American, after Australia’s mining heavyweight made an opening salvo in April that was rebuffed.
“We don’t speculate or comment on M&A (merger and acquisition) activity,” Mr Barton told shareholders.
Nevertheless, chief executive Jakob Stausholm said Rio Tinto was “at the heart of the energy transition and therefore facing an opportunity-rich world”.
Just over a year since underground production started at Oyu Tolgoi in Mongolia, Rio Tinto was on course to become one of the world’s leading suppliers of copper, he said.
The ore deposit equivalent to the area of Manhattan in New York lies at a depth of 1.3km below the Gobi desert and is connected by 200km of tunnels.
“With our Oyu Tolgoi underground going from strength to strength, I believe we can repeat this success at the Simandou project in Guinea where we are at an earlier phase,” he said.
Simandou, where Rio Tinto is building a mine and 600km of rail, could be a “country-maker” for the people of Guinea, and provide the world with high-grade iron ore needed for green steel, he said.
But Australia’s biggest iron ore producer has taken a $US1.5 billion hit from lower commodity prices.
“Last year, we continued to stabilise our operations, particularly in the iron ore business, and we are carrying that momentum with us in 2024,” Mr Stausholm said.
Rio Tinto also continues to try to repair the reputational damage from its destruction of 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge rock shelters in Western Australia’s Pilbara region in 2020.
“If we keep listening, stick to our values and find better ways to work together and build trust, I believe we can be a miner that people, communities, governments and customers choose to work with,” he said.
The understanding of this was deepening across the company but progress would be judged by society at large, not Rio Tinto, he said.
Working with the Yindjibarndi Energy Corporation on renewable energy projects in the Pilbara was an example of co-management and co-development to share prosperity, he said.
Meanwhile the Rincon project in Argentina is developing a battery-grade lithium carbonate plant, with production expected to start by the end of the year.