Rio Tinto – Page 47 – Republic of Mining

All change at the top – Top global mining CEOs an endangered species – by Lawrence Williams (Mineweb.com – January 17, 2013)

January 17, 2013January 17, 2013

http://www.mineweb.com/

Nearly all the world’s top industrial and gold mining companies have been, or are in the process of, changing their CEOs. What impact will this have on future metals production?

LONDON (MINEWEB) – Rio Tinto’s Tom Albanese is the latest victim of rapidly shrinking endangered species, the major mining CEO.

It may have taken almost 6 years but, the primary reason for the departure was the mega-miner’s foray into aluminium with the takeover of Alcan in 2007, just ahead of the big commodity price collapse of 2007/2008.

Aluminium has never fully recovered from that and at last Rio has taken the decision to write off $10 billion against the fall in value of one of the world’s biggest aluminium producers.

Albanese might have survived this on its own, but the recent $3.5 billion purchase of Mozambique coal developer, Riversdale, just. two years ago, which is now being almost entirely written down in Rio’s books was just too much for the company’s board and shareholders to live with. Albanese had to go

But Albanese is not alone. Of the world’s 10 largest mining companies, eight CEOs have been pushed, resigned, or are at least rumoured to be leaving. Look at the list: Top global miner BHP is reported in the Australian press to be seeking a successor to CEO, Marius Kloppers;

Rio Tinto CEO pays price of calamitous acquisitions – by Clara Ferreira-Marques (Reuters.com – January 17, 2013)

January 17, 2013

http://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Rio Tinto (RIO.L) sacked chief executive Tom Albanese on Thursday and revealed a $14 billion writedown in connection with his two most significant acquisitions, the Alcan aluminium group and Mozambican coal.

A heavyweight who joined the third-largest diversified miner two decades ago, Albanese will be replaced by iron ore boss Sam Walsh. Doug Ritchie, who led the acquisition of Mozambique-focused miner Riversdale, was also shown the door.

New Jersey-born, Alaska-trained Albanese had until now survived the consequences of his disastrous $38 billion acquisition of Alcan in 2007, a bruising top-of-the-market deal when Rio was under pressure from rivals to bulk up or be bought.

The deal, just two months after Albanese took the reins, turned bad as markets crumbled and aluminium prices slumped, battering Rio’s balance sheet, nearly forcing it into the arms of Chinese state-owned Chinalco and triggering a $15 billion rights issue. Rio has since seen years of losses in aluminium and taken billions in impairments – it had already taken an $8.9 billion charge on those struggling assets a year ago.

Walsh was welcomed by investors and analysts on Thursday as a safe pair of hands, but many also questioned whether a 63-year-old veteran would be a long-term solution, raising concerns over management at a group that also announced the departure of its chief financial officer last July.

RIO TINTO ON LEAN MANUFACTURING IN THE MINING SECTOR – by Paul Smith (Shinka Management.com – December 20, 2012)

January 3, 2013

http://shinkamanagement.com/

In November following the completion of our 2012 Lean Japan Tour I was fortunate to attend the 40th Anniversary of the establishment of the Australian and New Zealand Chamber of Commerce in Japan. It was an enjoyable night in Tokyo’s beautiful Peninsula Hotel, with the Australian Food and Beverage Manager treating guests to a superb meal, and singer Sarah Àlainn entertaining us early in the night with a number of songs from her recent debut album.

The highlight of the evening for myself was the keynote address from Sam Walsh AO, Executive Director of Rio Tinto. Sam opened his address by talking about the trade relationship between Australia and Japan and the growth and development of the broader Asia Pacific region.

Sam then turned to his own background with Japan and Rio Tinto’s iron ore business. To my pleasant surprise Sam focused his talk on his 20-year experience in the automotive industry and how lessons learned from lean manufacturing have been critical to Rio Tinto’s mining operations.

Sam began by addressing the seemingly unrelated industries of automotive manufacturing and large-scale mineral resource extraction.

“To the uninitiated, the two industries might seem worlds apart. One manufactures highly engineered, precision vehicle components to exacting specifications. It’s an extremely competitive industry. It requires complex, hugely sophisticated and wherever possible automated plant and equipment. It demands first rate forecasting and scheduling, tight inventory and costs control and a keen customer focus. It depends upon top-flight engineering, electronics and technical expertise and lean, high performance business practices.

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OMA releases mining sector economic contribution study

December 6, 2012

The Above Video Provided by Rio Tinto: Making Modern Life Work

The article below was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.

Click here for a copy of the report: http://www.oma.on.ca/en/ontariomining/resources/UofTMiningReport2012Final.pdf

The Ontario Mining Association’s 2012 mineral sector economic impact study “Mining: Dynamic and Dependable for Ontario’s Future,” was released today at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. University of Toronto economists Peter Dungan and Steve Murphy presented the key findings of their 81-page report, which was completed for the OMA, to industry representatives, government officials, academics and the media. Along with plenty of commentary and analysis, the study contains 47 charts, 32 tables and four maps.

“We know mining makes important contributions to the society and economy in all regions of this province and this study helps us quantify the scale of many of these positive impacts,” said OMA President Chris Hodgson. “Mining is an expanding component of the Ontario economy. The world wants Ontario’s mineral products and if the province provides necessary infrastructure support and maintains an atmosphere conducive to investment, it will continue to be pulled ahead by a strong mining industry.”

Vale partner says Guinea seeks to seize iron ore rights – by Richard Valdmanis, Clara Ferreira-Marques, and Saliou Samb (Reuters Canada – November 3, 2012)

November 5, 2012

http://ca.reuters.com/

DAKAR/LONDON (Reuters) – The mining arm of Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz’s business empire has accused the government of Guinea of seeking to “illegally seize” its assets through a probe into how it won rights to mine part of a major iron ore deposit.

Privately owned BSG Resources, which has been working in the West African country with Brazilian mining major Vale (VALE5.SA: Quote), confirmed it had received a letter from a government commission alleging improper behavior and graft in its winning of rights to develop blocks in the Simandou region.

The Financial Times reported on Saturday that a government committee backed by philanthropist George Soros had launched a corruption probe into the award process for the blocks in 2008 and sent the letter to BSG including a range of charges.

The blocks were stripped from Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto (RIO.AX: Quote) and the licenses passed to BSGR in 2008, under a previous administration. Simandou, in Guinea’s hilly and forested southeast, is estimated to hold what could be the world’s largest unexploited iron ore reserves.

“This is the fifth and most clumsy attempt by an already discredited Government of Guinea in an ongoing campaign to illegally seize BSGR’s assets,” BSGR said in a statement.

‘Rail-veyors’ and robots [mining innovation] – by Julie Gordon (Reuters/Sudbury Star – October 29, 2012)

October 29, 2012

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

In an office trailer parked outside a mine shaft in a Copper Cliff Mine, operator Carolyn St-Jean leans back in her chair and monitors a machine loading nickel-rich ore into rail cars deep underground.

Once filled, the automated train will snake through a series of narrow tunnels, emerge from a rocky outcropping, then loop past St-Jean’s window and dump its payload for sorting.

Vale SA, the Brazilian company that owns the mine near this nickel-rich area, has spent nearly $50 million in two years to install and test the “ra i lveyor.” The company believes the transport system will revolutionize how it builds and extracts new mineral deposits.

The equipment is made locally by Rail-Veyor Technologies Global Inc. It is one of many mining technologies developers hope will allow future production to be run almost entirely by people safely above ground.

Such advances may prove crucial as easy-to-exploit deposits run dry and miners drill deeper in more remote places to supply China, India and other emerging economies. The technology could make mining cheaper and safer, avoiding the need to dig wide tunnels and hire large numbers of expensive, skilled workers.

Rio Tinto wants to reopen union deal in Quebec – by Pav Jordan (Globe and Mail – October 13, 2012)

October 14, 2012

Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Rio Tinto Alcan is in talks with workers about reopening a nine-year collective agreement at its aging Arvida smelter in Quebec, as the company battles stubbornly low aluminum prices hit by a global commodities slowdown.

Montreal-based Rio Tinto Alcan, the aluminum division of parent Rio Tinto PLC, said it met on Thursday with representatives of the 1,500-strong Canadian Auto Workers union at Arvida and related facilities, for preliminary talks about how to cut costs at the smelter.

The meeting, expected to be the first of several over coming weeks, came just days after London-based Rio Tinto, the world’s third-biggest diversified miner, said it would delay new project approvals in the near term because the business outlook has become less certain than it was even a few months ago.

“There are a number of headwinds that we are dealing with, but certainly with the metal where it is, today it is just under $2,000 on the [London Metal Exchange], it’s a pretty challenging environment,” said company spokesman Bryan Tucker.

Miners take a loss – by Star Staff (Sudbury Star – August 7, 2012)

August 7, 2012

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Global mining companies’ multi-billion dollar spending plans will be under scrutiny in the coming weeks when Xstrata and others look set to post their first decline in profits since 2009, hit by falling prices and high costs.

Stubbornly high costs and the impact of softer demand on the price of key commodities like iron ore have squeezed margins. Brazil’s Vale posted its worst second-quarter result in two years, while Anglo American saw interim profits drop by more than a third.

With the impact of weaker prices largely factored in, analysts say they and investors will be focused instead on companies’ cost-cutting plans. In particular, they will be looking at the impact of a deteriorating environment on the timing of major projects like BHP’s $20 billion expansion plan for Port Hedland in Australia or Olympic Dam in South Australia, one of the world’s largest mines.

BHP has already backed away from an $80 billion five-year spending plan announced in 2011, and has since signalled it would review its project pipeline and focus on cutting costs.

Labrador’s iron ore goes global (Canadian Mining Journal – April 2012)

May 1, 2012

The Canadian Mining Journal is Canada’s first mining publication providing information on Canadian mining and exploration trends, technologies, operations, and industry events.

*Information for this article provided by the Department of Natural Resources, Geological Survey, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The world-class Labrador Trough iron mining district has long been a bastion of stability in the often uncertain world of mining.

Having produced more than 2 billion tonnes of ore over 50 years of continuous production, “The Trough” can claim a prominent place in the Canadian mining sector.

Currently, with new mine openings, major expansions at existing operations, and key port and rail upgrades, the district is being reinvigorated with investment capital from around the globe. In the current planning cycle, at least $15 billion of new investment in Labrador may be realized if projects advance to development.

At present, there are three iron ore operations located in the Labrador section of “The Trough:” Rio Tinto IOC (Carol Lake), Cliffs Natural Resources (Wabush Mines), and Labrador Iron Mines (Schefferville/Menihek DSO project).

Ivanhoe CEO Loses in Rio ‘Chess Game’ Over Mongolia Mine – by Christopher Donville and Liezel Hill (Bloomberg.com 0 April 19, 2012)

April 19, 2012

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Twelve years after beginning his quest to build a copper mine in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, it’s checkmate for Robert Friedland.

Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. said yesterday the billionaire investor resigned as chief executive officer, along with other top executives at the Vancouver-based company. It said Rio Tinto Group agreed to ensure funding of the $6 billion Oyu Tolgoi project’s construction. The accord means Rio is free to appoint Ivanhoe’s management, cementing control of the company three months after increasing its stake to 51 percent.

“Friedland’s lost the chess game with Rio,” John Stephenson, a fund manager in Toronto who oversees about $2.7 billion at First Asset Investment Management, said in an interview.

Oyu Tolgoi — which means “turquoise hill” in Mongolian – – is just the latest of several chapters in the often controversial career of Friedland, who holds a 14 percent stake in Ivanhoe. A one-time mentor to Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, Friedland, 61, has raised funds for mines in North America and Asia since the mid-1980s and led the C$4.3 billion ($4.3 billion) sale of the Voisey’s Bay nickel deposit in Canada in 1996. His next adventure may be developing mines in Africa.

Iron ore producers undeterred by slowing growth in China – by Nicolas Johnson (Globe and Mail – March 21, 2012)

March 21, 2012

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

The world’s largest miner may have sent a chill through global markets with a warning that growth in China’s steel output is slowing, but Canadian suppliers of iron ore have no plans to slow their expansion plans.

Rio Tinto Group, which controls Canada’s biggest producer of iron ore, a key ingredient in steel, said in a presentation that it’s continuing to build mines in Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steel maker and the No. 4 producer of iron ore, is pursuing a $2.1-billion expansion in Quebec.

China is the world’s fastest-growing major economy and the biggest consumer of materials such as iron ore, coal, copper and gold – and prices for those products react to changes in the outlook for demand. That’s particularly important to Canada since companies that produce or process those commodities account for many of the listings on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the country’s main bourse.

A Battle for Mongolia’s Copper Lode – by Alistair MacDonald (Wall Street Journal – February 22, 2012)

February 22, 2012

http://europe.wsj.com/home-page

Billionaire Friedland on Defensive as Rio Tinto Grabs Controlling Stake in His Ivanhoe Mines.

TORONTO—Billionaire entrepreneur Robert Friedland built his fortune learning how to gain advantage over some of the world’s largest and most powerful mining companies. Today Mr. Friedland is finding that dealing with giants can be tricky sport.

At issue is ownership of resources buried deep in the Mongolian desert that are among the world’s largest unexploited gold and copper deposits—a development with estimated reserves of 81 billion pounds of copper and 46 million ounces of gold.

Mr. Friedland, the chief executive of Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. and one of the sector’s most colorful moguls, is on the back foot in a squabble with industry giant Rio Tinto PLC over Oyu Tolgoi, Ivanhoe’s massive copper-and-gold project in Mongolia.

Last month, Rio Tinto increased its ownership in Ivanhoe to 51%, a stake that gives it effective control of the Canadian miner without having paid a premium to other shareholders—a move that Ivanhoe CEO and founder Mr. Friedland had fought to prevent.

Miners look to a future of automated operations – by Brenda Bouw (Globe and Mail – February 6, 2012)

February 6, 2012

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Most mines are already desolate, vast landscapes filled with the hum of haul trucks and only a few humans. But in years to come they will be even more deserted, as more companies find ways to run their operations from control centres thousands of kilometres away.

The industry’s ongoing efforts to increase automation are expected eventually to improve safety, increase production and lower maintenance costs. Remote operations could also ease labour shortages by moving hard-to-fill jobs in the middle of nowhere to more desirable urban centres.

So far the technology is only being tested by a few big-name mining companies, and it’s too soon to tell just how much money it will save, particularly when expenditures are a closely guarded secret.

CIDA funds seen to be subsidizing mining firms – by Daniel LeBlanc (Globe and Mail – January 30, 2012)

January 30, 2012

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

OTTAWA— The Harper government weathered a storm when it cut funding to long-standing foreign-aid groups, but is now facing more controversy over its decision to launch development projects in partnership with mining firms.

The Canadian International Development Agency has established three foreign-aid pilot projects in Africa and South America with large mining corporations, as part of a plan to ensure that foreign aid also fuels economic growth and international trade at home.

Critics argue that Canada is needlessly subsidizing the foreign operations of profitable corporations, but the government is encouraging non-governmental organizations to come up with more projects with the private sector.