Rio Tinto’s fourth-quarter iron ore, copper output beat estimates

By Melanie Burton

MELBOURNE, Jan 21 (Reuters) – Rio Tinto beat expectations on Wednesday for quarterly iron ore and copper production in a strong showing for its newly minted CEO, and looked set to retain its crown as the world’s top producer of the key steelmaking ingredient.

The production report highlights the operational improvements underway at Rio Tinto as Simon Trott took the helm of the company, which is in merger talks with Glencore to form the world’s biggest miner.

Part of any merger will have Glencore relying on Rio Tinto’s operational acumen to improve its mining outcomes. Under UK takeover rules, Rio Tinto has until February 5 to make a formal offer for Glencore or say it will not proceed.

“A solid quarter, they have pretty much beat across the board in the main businesses of iron ore, copper, aluminium,” said analyst Glyn Lawcock of Barrenjoey.

“The only thing I’d call out was the pricing in iron ore was weaker than BHP year on year and sequentially,” he said. “The key for Simon in my mind, is delivery on what he promised us in December which is the cost-out program, and hopefully we will get more information from them in February.”

Rio Tinto’s realised iron ore prices in the December half were up 1% sequentially compared to BHP’s 2% price growth over the same period despite issues with China’s state buyer, Lawcock said.

BHP said on Tuesday it had accepted lower prices for some iron ore sales while it negotiates a 2026 supply deal with China.

Rio said it will release the unit cost performance for 2025 and the 2026 forecast with its full-year results on February 19. Shares rose 1%.

RIO VS VALE

Despite the comeback performance, Rio Tinto is still in danger of losing the top producer spot to Brazil’s Vale, which reports on Monday.

Rio shipped 326.2 million metric tons of iron ore from its Pilbara operations in 2025, landing at the lower end of its forecast range of 323 to 338 million tons. Total production for the year, including from its Canadian operations, came in at 336.6 million tons.

Vale said in October it was tracking towards the upper end of its forecast range at 325 to 335 million tons.

The Anglo-Australian miner shipped 91.3 million tons of iron ore from its Pilbara operations for the three months ended December 31, compared with 85.7 million tons shipped in the same period of last year and exceeding Visible Alpha’s consensus estimate of 88.2 million tons.

Mined copper production on a consolidated basis grew 5% to 240,000 tons in the quarter, higher than Visible Alpha’s consensus estimate of 214,400 tons.

Annual copper production grew 11% to 883,000 tons, coming higher than the top end of Rio’s forecast range, driven by the underground ramp-up, higher grades and recovery rates at its Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia.

A tie-up with Glencore would buttress Rio’s copper portfolio as surging demand from artificial intelligence and energy transition boosts the appeal of the highly conductive metal.

(Reporting by Himanshi Akhand and Roshan Thomas in Bengaluru; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)