Rio Tinto's profit dropped in the first half of FY '13, though producing 19.1% more coal. However, Rio Tinto is targeting to produce Australian hard coking coal in 8 MnT quantity, Semi-soft coking coal in 4 MnT and Thermal coal in 21 MnT quantity.
The world's leading global mining and metal company Rio Tinto had reported in last week that during first half of the financial year, Rio Tinto's coal production increased by 19.1% which is 21.1 Million Tonnes (MnT) including Hard coking coal, Semi-soft coking coal and Thermal coal. For the same period last year, Rio Tinto has produced around 18 MnT of coal.
In the first half of FY '13, Rio Tinto's Hard coking coal production has dropped by 4% and produced around 3.5 MnT of Hard coking coal. However their production of Semi-soft coking coal and Thermal coal has increased by 36% and 24% respectively in comparison to the same period last year and produced around 2.1 MnT and 11 MnT respectively.
However, Rio Tinto coal production comes under the energy group which also includes Uranium mining in Australia, thier Half yearly Uranium production has seen a 24% growth and produced 4.7 Million lbs of Uranium.
The Rio Tinto Energy group reported that for the first half in 2013 they incurred a loss of USD 55 Million as compared to 2012's first half earning of USD 320 Million.
For the coal market they have reported that “By the end of the first half of 2013, the thermal coal market had seen the price gains in the fourth quarter of 2012 which eroded to the lowest point since November 2009 with Newcastle prices down 18% to USD 79 per tonne.“
“In the first half of 2013, metallurgical coal markets weakened substantially with prices for prime hard coking coal falling from the February highs of USD 170 per tonne to finish June at USD 130 per tonne. Contributing to the weak price environment was strong supply growth from major seaborne producers and ongoing weakness in ex-China import demand.” they further added.
Regarding the new projects Group stated that they have started coal production from the Kestresl Mine Extension project and are planning to increase production gradually during the period. They are expecting to operate with full capacity by the end of 2014 and will produce around 5.7 MnT of coal on an average for more than 20 years.
In extraction of coal, Rio Tinto is facing high cost operating environment in Queensland and New South Wales and in Mozambique, Infrastructure is the major constraint.
For FY '13, Rio Tinto is targeting to produce Australian hard coking coal in 8 MnT quantity, Semi-soft coking coal in 4 MnT and Thermal coal in 21 MnT quantity. In total group targets to produce around 33 MnT of coal in FY '13-14.
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