Rio Tinto says it will spend $20 billion in the Pilbara over the next three years as the Robe River Kuruma Aboriginal Corporation questions the board on claims of underpayments and inaction.
Rio Tinto says it will spend $20 billion in the Pilbara over the next three years as the Robe River Kuruma Aboriginal Corporation questions the board on claims of underpayments and inaction.
A delegation of leaders representing the Robe River Kuruma people took to Rio’s AGM to pose questions and raise concerns with the board who were in attendance in Perth on Thursday.
In a statement ahead of the meeting, Robe River Kuruma Aboriginal Corporation chief Anthony Galante said they had been working hard to build a positive relationship with Rio but had been undermined by the miner’s “failure” to address key issues.
RRKAC described itself as a native title body representing the Robe River Kuruma people who holds rights over nearly 16,000 square kilometres in the Pilbara.
At the AGM, Robe River Kuruma woman Deanna McGowan questioned the board over what she described as a failure to modernise the agreement with the RRK people and raised concerns around “decades of underpayments” from mining operations.
Ms McGowan claimed they had been “cheated out of 17 years of payments” from the miner’s expansive Mesa J iron ore operation. She said they had only been paid for 3 years.
The Kuruma Marthudunera Charitable Trust, which receives royalty payments on behalf of the Kuruma and Marthudunera People, has reported a big increase in income in recent years.
It was paid $18.2 million in income related to indigenous land use agreements in the year to June 2024, but did not disclose how much of that came from Rio.
That is up from $9 million in FY23, $8.4 million in FY22 and between $4 million and $6 million in prior years.
Its FY24 revenue would rank it as one of the 10 largest indigenous charitable trusts in WA, according to Business News’ Data & Insights.
Ms McGowan also raised long-running water scarcity concerns calling on Rio to cut its consumption, saying they couldn’t wait on the miner to build its desalination plants.
Rio executives said they were committed to finding an agreement and resolutions, and reiterated plans to reduce water usage, pointing to the desalination plants.
The dispute with RRKAC is one of several Rio has been grappling with in recent years.
In 2022, it paid $125 million to The General Gumula Foundation after admitting to “discrepancies” on royalty payments from its Yandi mine.
In the same year, it sought to address a long-standing grievance by the Eastern Guruma people when it started paying royalties on three big iron ore mines that pre-dated native title agreements
Rio has also made compensation payments to the PKKP people via the Juukan Gorge Legacy Foundation, though the amount paid has been redacted from the foundation’s annual reports.
In his speech at the AGM, chairman Dominic Barton said the miner had relationships with more than 60 Indigenous and land-connected groups across the globe.
“Many of these are very positive relationships, while a small number remain challenged,” he said.
“In any case, we are committed to working together to achieve positive, long-term outcomes.”
The big-ticket item of Rio’s AGM was a vote on whether or not the global mining company maintains its London listing -which shareholders voted to maintain.
In the lead up to the meeting an activist shareholder was pushing the board to scrap its dual listing in favour of the ASX, following the likes of mining peer BHP.
But Rio had been strongly defending the dual listing on the two stock exchanges, having unanimously recommended shareholders vote against the resolution lobbed.
At the AGM, more than 80 per cent of shareholders voted against the resolution, meaning Rio will maintain its dual listings.
Mr Barton also used his speech to declare Rio would spend US$13.3 billion (AUD$20.81 billion) on new mines, plant and equipment in the Pilbara over the next three years.
He said it built on the US$8.5 billion (AUD$13.3 billion) investment in the North West region over the past three years, while highlighting mining major’s iron ore assets in the region.
“We’re also studying Rhodes Ridge, which may one day become the biggest iron ore mine built in Australia, potentially producing more than 100 million tonnes per annum,” Mr Barton said.
Rio has previously said it was planning to commission a new iron ore mine each year for this decade to ensure sustained iron ore production churning out of the Pilbara.
It comes as the miner builds its Simandou iron ore mine in Guinea.
