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Rio Tinto

Federal court allows international mining giant to oppose tribes in Oak Flat lawsuit – by Debra Utacia Krol (Arizona Republic – May 31, 2023)

https://www.azcentral.com/

The U.S. District Court in Arizona granted mining giant Resolution Copper permission on Monday to join the U.S. government as a defendant in a lawsuit brought by grassroots group Apache Stronghold.

The Native organization has been fighting to prevent Resolution from building a huge copper mining operation that would obliterate Oak Flat, one of the Apaches peoples’ most sacred sites. Oak Flat, or Chi’chil Biłdagoteel, “the place where the Emory oak grows,” is also culturally important to other Southwestern tribes, and is one of Arizona’s remaining riparian zones and a popular site for recreational users.

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Top Stock Fund Wagers BHP, Rio Tinto Will Weather Iron-Ore Slump – by Georgina McKay (Bloomberg News – May 17, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — A top equities fund manager is backing BHP Group Ltd. and Rio Tinto Ltd., betting they can withstand softer iron-ore prices and will benefit as China’s reopening boosts demand for the commodity.

Australian producers are attractive as they have relatively low operating costs and high exposure to the mainland, the world’s largest consumer of the steel-making ingredient, according to David Wilson, who oversees the equivalent of $5.3 billion at Australia-focused First Sentier Wholesale Geared Share Fund. The fund has returned 10% this year, beating more than 90% of its peers.

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Rio Tinto Cautions Against Takeover Fever After Lithium’s Dramatic Price Slump – by Annie Lee and James Fernyhough (Bloomberg News – May 5, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Lithium’s dramatic price slump has mining heavyweights chasing takeovers of companies with early stage or pre-production projects. But one giant is warning that offering high premiums for smaller miners comes with risks.

Rio Tinto Group Chief Executive Officer Jakob Stausholm said he’s “cautious” about acquisitions at current valuations, despite the world’s second-biggest miner wanting to grow its nascent lithium business.

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UPDATE 1-Rio Tinto under ‘immense pressure’ to develop US copper project (Reuters – May 4, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE, May 4 (Reuters) – Rio Tinto Ltd is under “immense pressure” from the U.S. government to develop its Resolution copper project in the United States, given the copper it holds accounts for a quarter of all U.S. reserves, its chair Dominic Barton said on Thursday.

Copper is vital for the transition to green energy but the project in Arizona is opposed by all of the state’s tribal councils, including the San Carlos Apache because it would destroy a heritage site of religious significance.

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Copper Mine Flashes Warning of ‘Huge Crisis’ for World Supply – by James Fernyhough (Bloomberg News – May 2, 2023)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The transition to clean energy depends on copper, but a vast Mongolian mining project offers a glimpse of the metal’s troubled future.

Accompanied by tinny taped music and overall-clad workers, Rio Tinto Group executives and Mongolian officials gathered a kilometer beneath the freezing Gobi Desert earlier this year to open one of the world’s richest underground copper mines. It was a celebration four decades in the making.

Oyu Tolgoi, in southern Mongolia just north of the Chinese border, is key to Rio’s efforts to move beyond its dependence on iron ore and expand in copper, the metal that underpins the clean energy transition. It’s also a vast deposit whose corporate, political and technical vicissitudes offer a glimpse of the red metal’s troubled future.

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Rio buys scandium project – by Esmarie Iannucci (MiningWeekly.com – April 28,2023)

https://www.miningweekly.com/

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Diversified miner Rio Tinto has struck a $14-million deal with ASX-listed Platina Resources to acquire its Platina scandium project, in New South Wales. The project comprises a long-life, high-grade scalable resource that could produce up to 40 t/y of scandium oxide, for an estimated period of 30 years.

Rio currently produces scandium oxide from titanium dioxide production waste streams at Sorel-Tracy in Quebec. Once operational, the Platina scandium project will enable Rio Tinto to more than double its yearly scandium production.

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Mining giant hunts copper, nickel, cobalt and lithium in Neebing – by Gary Rinne (TBnewswatch.com – April 13, 2023)

https://www.tbnewswatch.com/

Global mining giant RioTinto has partnered with KoBold Metals to search a site near the Pine River and Crystal Lake

The multi-national mining company Rio Tinto is searching a property near Thunder Bay for copper, nickel, cobalt and lithium — metals that are increasingly in demand as the world ramps up the production of batteries to power vehicles.

Rio Tinto has partnered with California-based mining startup KoBold Metals to explore in the Pine River and Crystal Lake area of the Municipality of Neebing, about 40 km from the city, just west of Highway 61 and just north of the U.S. border.

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Rio Tinto’s Ivan Vella on why Canada needs to get its act together on regulation — fast – by Kevin Carmichael (Prince George Post – April 2023)

https://www.princegeorgepost.com/

Kevin Carmichael’s Conversations: New urgency is about climate change, not about maximizing profit for shareholders

Check your priors, economists say. Facts change. You’re asking for trouble if you assume the “laws” John Maynard Keynes set out in the 1930s, and the ones Milton Friedman devised in the 1970s, still apply today. It’s a good rule for writing, too. “We’ve got to go fast,” said Ivan Vella, who runs Rio Tinto Ltd.’s aluminum business out of Montreal. “I feel it every day when I get up. There’s a huge amount of pressure on us.”

We’d been talking about growth, one of Vella’s three primary objectives. That dialogue — as it tends to when you ask an executive about the obstacles to growing a business in Canada — had arrived at a critique of the country’s disinterest in doing anything about the thicket of federal, provincial and local regulation that keeps big things from getting done.

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Rio Tinto keeps working to build Indigenous support for Resolution mine – by Ernest Scheyder (Reuters – March 7, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

HOUSTON, March 7 (Reuters) – Rio Tinto Plc (RIO.AX)(RIO.L) said it remains committed to building more support from an Indigenous group that opposes its Resolution mine project in Arizona, which could supply a quarter of America’s copper needs depending on the outcome of a court case.

Resolution is key to the Anglo-Australian mining giant’s future as the project would produce more than 40 billion pounds of copper for the green energy transition. But that copper sits below the federally owned Oak Flat Campground, a place some Apache consider home to deities.

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Rio Tinto apologises for losing radioactive capsule in Australia – by Monica Miller, Lucy Hooker & Phil Mercer (BBC News – January 30, 2023)

https://www.bbc.com/

Mining giant Rio Tinto has apologised for losing a tiny radioactive capsule that went missing as it was being transported across Western Australia. An emergency hunt for the device, which is about the size of a pea, is under way along the 1,400km (870 mile) route.

The capsule contains a small quantity of radioactive Caesium-137, which could cause serious illness to anyone who comes into contact with it. That could include skin damage, burns or radiation sickness.

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A Copper Mine Could Advance Green Energy but Scar Sacred Land – by Clifford Krauss (New York Times – January 27, 2023)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Tribal groups are fighting an Arizona project whose backers say increasing the supply of copper, crucial to batteries, would reduce fossil-fuel use.

SUPERIOR, Ariz. — As Wendsler Nosie finished his evening prayers sitting before a mesquite fire, a ceremonial yucca staff festooned with eagle feathers by his side, he gazed sternly toward a distant mesa where mining companies hope to extract more than a billion tons of copper.

That mine could help address climate change by helping the United States replace fossil fuels and combustion engines with renewable energy and electric cars. But to Mr. Nosie, a former chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, it’s the latest insult in a bitter history.

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Rio Tinto talks up lithium M&A; investors hunt for targets – by Anthony Macdonald, Sarah Thompson and Kanika Sood (Australian Financial Review – December 14, 2022)

https://www.afr.com/

It’s Rio Tinto’s turn to pull out the chequebook and summon a beauty parade, after BHP’s move on OZ Minerals. The big miner broke tradition this week when it took analysts through its technical backroom in Melbourne’s Bundoora and, in particular, talked up its lithium ambitions.

Knowing Rio’s on the prowl with its $15 billion cash wad (and more coming thanks to its huge free cash flow, with analysts tipping close to $US20 billion this year), resources investors and executives spent Wednesday trying different companies for a fit.

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Rio Tinto hunts for lithium deals, eyes Jadar revival – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – December 13, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

Rio Tinto (ASX, LON, NYSE: RIO) said on Tuesday is actively searching for lithium assets as its expects prices for the metal used in the making of batteries that power electric vehicles to remain high for a “long period of time”.

The company had to shelve its proposed $2.4 billion Jadar lithium mine in Serbia early this year after the government revoked the project’s licences. In a presentation posted on its website, Rio confirmed it has not scrapped Jadar completely as it still considers the project as part of its portfolio and said it intends to de-risk the development process.

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Turquoise Hill shareholders back Rio Tinto takeover, signalling end to a long saga – by Naimul Karim (Financial Times – December 9, 2022)

https://financialpost.com/

Mining giant keen to gain control of one of the world’s largest new copper and gold mines

Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd.‘s shareholders voted in favour of Rio Tinto Ltd.’s US$3.3 billion proposal to take full control of the Montreal-based miner on Dec. 9, signalling an end to a rocky journey that included the postponement of three previous votes, multiple takeover offers from Rio, and side deals with minority owners that were abruptly terminated.

The deal will, however, need the final approval of the Supreme Court of Yukon where a hearing is scheduled for Dec. 14, the companies said. About 86.6 per cent of all votes cast and 60.5 per cent of the votes by Turquoise’s minority shareholders approved the takeover, the company said in a press release.

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Rio to pursue Turquoise bid after ending talks with minority shareholders – by Melanie Burton (Reuters – November 18, 2022)

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE, Nov 18 (Reuters) – Rio Tinto Ltd (RIO.AX) said on Friday it would plough ahead with a $3.3 billion bid to buy the 49% of Canada’s Turquoise Hill Resources (TRQ.TO) that it does not already own, after it ended separate talks with dissenting minority shareholders.

The Anglo-Australian miner is seeking to simplify its management of the giant Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia that it operates, but shares ownership through Turquoise Hill and the Mongolian government.

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