Rio Tinto increased iron ore supply by 1% y/y in Q3

In Q3 of 2023, the British-Australian mining concern Rio Tinto increased the shipment of iron ore from the Pilbara region (Western Australia) by 1% compared to the same period in 2022 – up to 83.9 million tons. This is evidenced by data, published on the company’s website.

Compared to the previous quarter, shipments increased by 6%. The indicator for 9 months of 2023 increased by 5% y/y – up to 245.5 million tons.

Iron ore production in the Pilbara region fell by 1% y/y during the period – to 83.5 million tons, compared to the second quarter, it increased by 3%. In January-September, the company extracted 244 million tons of iron ore, which is 4% more year-on-year.

The company continues to see high demand for its products delivered to Chinese ports. For the nine months of 2023, iron ore sales at the port amounted to 17.5 million tons, which is slightly lower than 19.5 million tons in the same period last year.

In 2022, Rio Tinto expects to deliver in the upper half of the forecast range of 320-335 million tons.

At the same time, iron ore producer lowered the estimate of iron ore production in Canada from the Iron Ore Company of Canada. It is expected that in 2023, it will amount to 9.3-9.8 million tons, which is lower than the previously forecasted 10-11 million tons. As the company reports, the work of IOC was affected by long downtimes and failures in the work of conveyor belts. In addition, they were recovering from the forest fires that took place in Northern Quebec in the previous quarter.

As GMK Center reported earlier, Rio Tinto is waiting to ship 323-338 million tonnes of iron ore from its mines in the Pilbara region (Western Australia) in 2024, but will produce more low iron ore. The company warned that the level of sales of its low-grade products (SP10) in the current year will reach 45-50 million tons, or 13-15% of the total volume of ore sales in Western Australia.