Iron ore production from Rio Tinto’s Pilbara mines reached near-record levels after the miner’s exports were curtailed by flooding at the start of the year.
Iron ore shipments from Rio Tinto’s Pilbara ports have bounced back after the miner’s exports were curtailed by flooding at the start of the year.
Rio Tinto on Wednesday revealed it exported 79.9 million tonnes of iron ore in the June quarter.
The figure was a 13 per cent turnaround from the first quarter when exports were impacted by flooding of a railcar dumper at Rio’s East Intercourse Island port near Dampier.
Production of iron ore from the Pilbara was up 20 per cent to 83.7Mt.
Rio expects to hit the lower end of its full year guidance of between 323Mt and 338Mt of iron ore.
Elsewhere in the business US President Donald Trump’s policies began to bite.
Rio took a US$300m ($460m) hit to its gross costs due to tariffs on its Canadian aluminium exports.
The miner said that cost had been largely offset by higher US metal prices.
First shipments from the Simandou iron ore mine in Guinea are still due in November, with Rio expected to move up to 1Mt this year from its new mine.
Copper production was up 15 per cent in a year to 229,000 tonnes for the quarter and is expected to come close to the top of Rio’s 750,000 to 850,000-tonne guidance for the year.
Rio Tinto chief executive Jakob Stausholm said ramp up of the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia fed growth in the miner’s copper business.
The miner on Tuesday announced its iron ore boss Simon Trott would replace Mr Stausholm as chief executive of the company in August.
Bauxite, alumina, titanium and processed iron ore exports were up for the year.
Guidance for all was unchanged.
