Rio Tinto Records Record Quarterly Iron-Ore Shipments
16 January 2018 - 9:24AM
Dow Jones News
By Robb M. Stewart
MELBOURNE, Australia--Rio Tinto PLC (RIO) continues to expect
shipments of iron ore from its Western Australia mines will likely
rise this year, after record exports in the last quarter allowed it
to hit a target for 2017.
Shipments of the steel-making commodity from Australia's western
Pilbara region are still expected to reach between 330 million and
340 million metric tons over 2018, the Anglo-Australian miner said
Tuesday. That after shipments from the mines of 90 million tons in
the fourth quarter of 2017 lifted output for the year by 1% to
330.1 million.
Rio Tinto finished the year with output in line with its own
guidance across all its major products.
Production of iron ore in the fourth quarter of last year was up
3% year-over-year at 87.9 million tons, though was steady for 2017
at 329.8 million tons.
The miner, one of the world's biggest producers of iron ore, has
said it will spend about US$1 billion annually over the next three
years on sustaining output in Australia's remote Pilbara region.
It's also studying a possible new US$2.2 billion mine that could
begin producing from 2021.
Rio Tinto said it expected its share of mined copper to rebound
to between 510,000 and 610,000 tons this year, while refined copper
output is forecast to be between 225,000 and 265,000 tons.
Mined copper volumes climbed 11% on-year in the final quarter of
2017 but were 9% lower for the year at 478,100 tons. Still the
annual figure was toward the upper end of guidance that was cut by
the company in mid-October to reflect a delayed expansion ramp-up
at the part-owned Escondida mine in Chile and changes at the
Kennecott mine outside Salt Lake City, Utah.
Among other commodities produced by Rio Tinto, the company said
output of hard coking coal was 5% lower at 7.7 million tons over
2017, despite a 6% rise on-year in the final quarter. Annual
bauxite production was 6% higher for the year at 50.8 million tons,
but aluminum production was 1% down at 3.6 million tons.
Rio Tinto said it expected coking coal output of between 7.5
million and 8.5 million tons this year, bauxite output between 49
million and 51 million tons, and aluminum volumes of 3.5
million-3.7 million tons..
Write to Robb M. Stewart at robb.stewart@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 15, 2018 17:09 ET (22:09 GMT)
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