Rio Tinto is streamlining operations and drafting a basic reset to speed up initiatives with faster and higher returns. The technique overhaul is courtesy of the mining large’s former head of the iron ore division, the group’s greatest enterprise, who turned chief government officer a couple of months in the past.
New Rio Tinto CEO Simon Trott will unveil his imaginative and prescient of a streamlined Rio Tinto at a Capital Markets Day occasion in London on Thursday.
Trott has signaled that reorganization will proceed to essentially reset the corporate’s companies. This might embrace asset gross sales, slowing developments in lithium initiatives, and extra price cuts, analysts inform The Wall Avenue Journal.
Rio Tinto may gradual the timeline for improvement of some lithium initiatives, based on traders, after the mining large guess massive on the important metallic final yr with the $6.7 billion acquisition of Arcadium Lithium.
The mining group will nonetheless guess on lithium, however initiatives must compete with the iron ore and copper developments, analysts say.
Days after turning into CEO, Trott introduced in August “a brand new working mannequin and government staff to form the corporate’s subsequent chapter.”
Efficient instantly, Rio Tinto simplified its product group construction to a few companies: Iron Ore, Aluminium & Lithium, and Copper.
Rio Tinto’s Lithium enterprise moved into the Aluminium product group underneath the management of Jérôme Pécresse.
“I feel in case you try to do every part, you get nothing achieved,” Trott stated on the Goldman Sachs World Metals and Mining convention 2025 in October.
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“One of many actually good issues about having choices, and we have got numerous choices within the lithium area, is that the bar is actually excessive, and so we will have a look at these initiatives and progress the easiest of them.”
Trott hinted Rio Tinto could be extra selective within the lithium enterprise to progress probably the most worthwhile initiatives.
The miner nonetheless sees sturdy lithium demand going ahead, it stated in its Third Quarter Operations Assessment.
“Lithium demand stays sturdy, underpinned by a 27% YoY improve in world electrical automobile (EV) gross sales throughout the primary seven months of this yr (in comparison with 22% over the identical interval in 2024). Demand from stationary batteries stays stable and is offering further upside,” Rio Tinto stated.
Nevertheless, final month the group determined to mothball a $2.4 billion lithium venture in Serbia after years of making an attempt to acquire all needed allowing.
