Here's an
article
from AAP on Rio Tinto's (NYSE: RTP) latest half year
results
.
Australia's second biggest miner Rio Tinto Ltd has posted a third quarter production record for iron ore, which jumped 11 per cent to 35.74 million tonnes.
It said the record iron ore production was achieved as the Pilbara expansion program continued to deliver additional capacity.
But the mining giant said that in the three months to September mined copper production was lower due to industrial action at the Escondida mine in Chile and refined copper production was down due to the start of a scheduled smelter shutdown at Kennecott Utah Copper.
Mined copper production fell six per cent to 182,800 tonnes, as production at Escondida fell 20 per cent from the third quarter of 2005 to 81,100.
Meanwhile, higher grades and improved recovery rates at Kennecott Utah Copper delivered record molybdenum production of 4,700 tonnes, up from 3,900 tonnes in the corresponding period.
Alumina production rose 13 per cent to 821,000 tonnes and Bauxite production rose seven per cent to 4.036 million tonnes, but Aluminum production fell one per cent to 215,200 tonnes.
"Production at the Comalco Alumina Refinery was only slightly below the record second quarter production, despite two planned major maintenance shutdowns during the quarter," Rio Tinto said.
Production of coal in the US jumped 11 per cent to 31.302 million tonnes, but Australian production slipped, hard coking coal down one per cent to 1.732 million tonnes and other coal down four per cent to 7.665 million tonnes.
Separately Coal & Allied, 75 per cent owned by Rio Tinto, posted third quarter production of 5.151 million tonnes, compared to 5.357 million for the same quarter last year.
Sales dipped to 4.997 million tonnes from 5.351 million for the three month to September.
In August booming copper prices pumped up Rio's first half net profit to a record high and the miner maintained its positive outlook for metals markets.
Interim profit rose by 75 per cent to $US3.796 billion ($A4.98 billion), exceeding the previous first half result of $US2.165 billion ($A2.84 billion), surprising the market compared to a consensus analyst forecast for $US3.5 billion ($A4.66 billion).
The six-month figures led to many analysts upgrade their forecasts for the full-year result, which will be reported early next year.
A couple of days ago I wrote up about China's record
Trade Surplus
, that just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Official Chinese GDP numbers also appear to be understated so the commodity boom going on right now appears set to continue.
In the above article it is mentioned that Rio Tinto expects the metals boom to continue as well and I have also found a snippet from an article in the Financaial Review earlier this.
The article mentioned that JP MOrgan analysts had an interview with Rio Tinto's cheif exec of iron ore division, who indicated that the miner is excited about the sustainability of the iron ore market in China and he believes that another increase in contract iron ore prices in April 2007 is acheivable.
Rio Tinto are currently trading 3% higher at $US209.17.