Rio Tinto, world’s second largest iron ore producer and exporter, has recently announced its Q4 15 results of iron ore production and exports. According to the report, the company produced 327.6 MnT in 2015, misses the annual target of 340 MnT in 2015 by 4%.
The company managed to produce 87.2 MnT iron ore in Q4 15 (ie Oct-Dec’15) and shipped 91.3 MnT in the same time frame mentioned above. Alongside, the company also aims to produce around 350 MnT iron ore in 2016 from its operations in Australia and Canada, subject to weather conditions.
Although the company needed to export around 95 MnT in Q4 2015, to meet the annual guidance published earlier, but fails to do so. However, the annual iron ore shipments by Rio Tinto increased by 11% in 2015, and recorded at 336.6 MnT in 2015.
One of the major reason behind short run production by the company is the operations at pilbara iron ore division was badly hampered in Q1 2015 due to bad weather.
Rio Tinto shipped more quantity of iron ore (i.e. 336.7 MnT) in 2015 as compared to production figures i.e. 327.6 MnT as they had sufficient stockpiles of ore.
If we talk about global iron ore prices, they are already plunged at three years low,due to China’s slow economy. Also, if likewise these big miners continues to increase production, global iron ore prices will touch to a level of USD 30/MT in near term.
Link to Rio Tinto’s Q4 15 operational report
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