{"id":1178786,"date":"2020-04-17T05:18:04","date_gmt":"2020-04-17T10:18:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1020788"},"modified":"2020-04-17T05:18:04","modified_gmt":"2020-04-17T10:18:04","slug":"rio-lowers-copper-target-flags-further-issues-at-oyu-tolgoi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1178786","title":{"rendered":"Rio lowers copper target, flags further issues at Oyu Tolgoi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rio Tinto (ASX, LON, NYSE: RIO) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.riotinto.com\/news\/releases\/Rio-Tinto-releases-first-quarter-production-results\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">signalled on Friday<\/a> a recovery in China\u2019s economy as it reported improved shipments of iron ore to the country, but cut its forecast for annual copper output citing coronavirus-related disruptions.<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center d-xs-block d-sm-block d-md-none'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The company, the world\u2019s top iron ore miner, posted<br \/>\nhigher-than-expected output of the steelmaking ingredient for the first three<br \/>\nmonths of the year. Production stood at 77.8 million tonnes, up 2.4% from the<br \/>\nsame period last year, despite a cyclone tearing through Rio\u2019s Western<br \/>\nAustralian operations in February.<\/p>\n<p>The miner, which makes most of its profits from China, shipped<br \/>\n72.9 million tonnes of iron ore in the three months to March, up 5.5% from a<br \/>\nyear ago, yet lower than some analysts had expected.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDemand in China continues to recover,\u201d chief executive, Jean-S\u00e9bastien<br \/>\nJacques, said in a statement. He added that the group\u2019s customer order books \u201cremained<br \/>\nhealthy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Just as most global miners, Rio has been hit by the coronavirus<br \/>\ncrisis. In March, it suspended operations at its mines in South Africa, and<br \/>\nslowed activity at its Canada and Mongolia units to comply with government<br \/>\nmeasures to contain the outbreak.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Copper troubles<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Rio revealed that production of copper, one of its key commodities, would not reach a previous production target of between 530,000 and 570,000 tonnes. It now expects to churn out between 475,000 and 520,000 tonnes, due to repair works at its Kennecott mine in the US, which was affected by an earthquake in March.<\/p>\n<p>Fears that its 30%-owned Escondida mine in Chile, the world\u2019s<br \/>\nbiggest copper operation, could soon take a hit, also weighed on the guidance<br \/>\ndowngrade.<\/p>\n<p>Rio also flagged copper and gold output drops at its already<br \/>\ntroubled Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia, where its carrying out an underground expansion<br \/>\nexpected to lift production from 125,000\u2013150,000 tonnes in 2019 to 560,000 tonnes<br \/>\nat peak output, targeted for 2025.<\/p>\n<p>The company confirmed last year the project was running between 16 months and 30 months late and roughly $1.2 billion to $1.9 billion over budget. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>It now expects to churn out between 475,000 and 520,000 tonnes of copper.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>There were fresh signs of delays on Friday, after it said that it would have to bring experts into the site to rectify industrial ropes in the largest and most important access shaft to the underground mine, which is known as Shaft 2.<\/p>\n<p>Those ropes service a giant elevator that allows people,<br \/>\nequipment and ore to move between the bottom of the mine, 1.3 km underground,<br \/>\nand the surface.<\/p>\n<p>Rio\u2019s subsidiary and Oyu Tolgoi operator, Turquoise Hill<br \/>\nResources (TSX, NYSE:TRQ), said the covid-19 pandemic was making it hard to get<br \/>\nexperts to the remote Mongolian mine to conduct &#8220;rectification work&#8221;<br \/>\non the ropes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8221;Underground development progress may be impacted by 30% as a result of travel restrictions due to covid-19 preventing experts from travelling to the Oyu Tolgoi site,&#8221; Turquoise Hill <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/oyu-tolgoi-q1-gold-production-plummets-78\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">said on Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, Rio\u2019s investor US hedge fund Pentwater<br \/>\nCapital said it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/rio-tinto-grapples-with-fresh-investor-revolt-over-mongolia-mine\/\">would<br \/>\npush for a management shakeup<\/a> at the operation, claiming is \u201ca massive<br \/>\ndevaluation\u201d of the asset.<\/p>\n<p>The giant deposit, discovered in 2001, is one-third owned by Mongolia\u2019s<br \/>\ngovernment and two-thirds held by Turquoise Hill. Rio has a 51% stake in the<br \/>\nCanadian miner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It won&#8217;t meet its previous production guidance of 530,000-570,000 tonnes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[949,369,4,2857,2640],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178786"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1178786"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1178901,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178786\/revisions\/1178901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1178786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1178786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1178786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}