Rio Tinto Group
| Rio Tinto Group
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|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | Public limited company . Dual-listed company |
| ISIN |
GB0007188757 (plc) AU000000RIO1 (Limited) |
| founding | 1873 |
| Seat | London & Melbourne |
| management | Jean-Sébastien Jacques (CEO) |
| Number of employees | 47,000 |
| sales | 40.5 billion . US dollar (2018) |
| Branch | Mining |
| Website | www.riotinto.com |
| Status: February 27, 2019 | |
Rio Tinto is a British - Australian mining company founded in 1873 . Alongside Vale and BHP, it is one of the three largest mining companies in the world and has been the world's leading aluminum producer since the takeover of Alcan . In the Forbes Global 2000 of the largest listed companies, Rio Tinto ranks 111th (as of 2017 fiscal year). The company had a market value of over USD 99 billion in mid-2018.
Rio Tinto has been a dual-listed company since 1995 . Rio Tinto Limited, formerly CRA, is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange and with Rio Tinto plc (formerly RTZ) also on the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange . Both companies are managed by a joint management board with the same voting rights and dividends . The RTZ owners brought in 76.7% of the assets managed from London. The Chief Executive Officer is Jean-Sébastien Jacques (previously Sam Walsh) and the Chairman is Jan du Plessis .
history
The origins of the company lie in the copper deposits near Minas de Riotinto in southern Spain, which were already known in the Bronze Age and which later also supplied the Roman Empire with copper . NM Rothschild & Sons (London) and Rothschild Frères in Paris, along with other investors, bought the loss-making Rio Tinto state mines in 1873. The new owners restructured the company without consideration and generated profits. Many people were poisoned by using production methods that were banned in England. At a protest rally against the grievances in 1888, the owners shot over 100 people. In 1905 the Rothschilds held a little over 30% of the shares in Rio Tinto. According to the history of the Spanish Civil War , Francisco Franco signed a contract with Adolf Hitler in 1937 to purchase German bombers paid for with copper from the Rio Tinto mines. It is not known whether Franco paid or compensated Rio Tinto for this.
In 1962, the British Rio Tinto company took over the majority of the Australian Consolidated Zinc and renamed itself Rio Tinto Zinc Corporation (RTZ). The Australian company was named Conzinc Riotinto of Australia (CRA), but retained its corporate structure. Substantial shares are held by Australians.
Together with the Brazilian Companhia Vale do Rio Doce and Xstrata , the group considered taking over the third largest mining company Anglo American for 80 billion US dollars in 2006 . In July 2007, the acquisition of Alcan was also announced.
In 2008, BHP Billiton intended to take over Rio Tinto, but this failed due to falling commodity prices as a result of the 2008 financial crisis .
In 2011, Rio Tinto took over Riversdale Mining with its coal deposits in Mozambique for $ 3.9 billion . Three years later, Rio Tinto sold these assets to the State of India (ICVL) for $ 50 million. This fiasco led to the resignation of CEO Tom Albanese.
Branches of business
Ores
Iron ore
Rio Tinto owns Hamersley Iron , which operates several mines, alone or with partners, in Western Australia . Some of their partners are Chinese companies. Rio Tinto also owns 53% of Robe River Iron Associates and 59% of the Iron Ore Company of Canada .
In 2002, employees of the company discovered a huge iron ore deposit (100 billion tons) on Simandou Hill near Moribadou in Forest Guinea in southeastern Guinea . With the acquisition of mining rights by Rio Tinto, there was also the obligation to build a 650-kilometer-long railway line and a new port, which should take place from 2007 to 2014. Rio Tinto took too much time realizing the project. The mining rights were therefore initially given by the then ruler Lansana Conté without payment and only against the promise of future investments to the Israeli Beny Steinmetz Group, which has no experience with ore mining and 51% of the rights after one year for 2.5 billion US dollars Dollar resold to the Brazilian company Vale . In 2010, after the death of the ruler, the state declared the licenses to be invalid because corruption was apparently involved in the award, and they went back to Rio Tinto. In 2016, Rio Tinto finally abandoned the project due to falling iron ore prices and the Ebola epidemic and sold the rights to the Aluminum Corporation of China (Chalco), which had not yet started construction of the railway line in 2018.
aluminum
The company owns Comalco , which mines bauxite (aluminum ore) in Weipa , Queensland, and refines it in Gladstone and Sardinia . It also operates the Gove bauxite mine on the Gove Peninsula near Yirrkala in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory . The bauxite extracted there is processed into aluminum oxide using the Bayer process .
The aluminum oxide is then melted into aluminum using fused-salt electrolysis . This happens u. A. in Bell Bay (Tasmania) and on Boyne Island (Queensland, 59% share) as well as at Tiwai Point (New Zealand) with 79% share. After the takeover of Alcan, these plants and their plants formed the subdivision Rio Tinto Alcan . This made Rio Tinto the world's largest aluminum producer.
Copper and gold
The two metals are extracted , partly in a joint venture , in mines in Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, Chile (here Rio Tinto holds a 30 percent stake in Minera Escondida ) and the United States. Kennecott Utah Copper is also part of the company .
Energy resources
The company operates coal mines in North America, as well as Energy Resources of Australia Ltd. , which exploits the Ranger uranium mine near the Kakadu National Park .
The subsidiary Rio Tinto Coal Australia produces coal in Australia.
Industrial minerals
Talc , titanium dioxide , salt and borax , among other minerals, are extracted in Australia, the United States, Austria and Africa.
Diamonds
The company mines pink diamonds in the Argyle diamond mine in Western Australia , holding 90% of the world's production of these stones and is the third largest producer of natural diamonds. She owns 60% of the Diavik Diamond Mine in Canada's Northwest Territories , which she also manages, and shares in the Murowa Diamond Mine in Zimbabwe .
technology
The company maintains an exploration and research and development department for iron smelting processes.
criticism
Environmental and trade union groups, in particular the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), have raised concerns about violations of environmental and labor rights as well as a lack of safety regulations. The CFMEU managed a campaign against the dissolution of the unions in the company, which the company sought to enforce under the Workplace Relations Act 1996 of the John Howard government in Australia.
The conflict over the Rio Tinto operated Pangunamine triggered the civil war on Bougainville in Papua New Guinea since 1989.
On September 10, 2008, Norwegian Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen announced that the State Pension Fund would sell a £ 500 million stake because the company was involved in massive environmental damage.
At the end of May 2020, Australian media reported that Rio Tinto had a 46,000 year old indigenous cultural site blown up on May 24, 2020 in the Western Australian Pilbara Desert. According to the Chairman of UNESCO for the Protection of Cultural Property and Peace, Peter Stone, this destruction in the Jukaan Gorge is one of the worst destruction of cultural property in recent times. He compared it to the destruction of the Buddha statues of Bamiyan by the Taliban and to the destruction of the ancient oasis state of Palmyra by the Islamic State .
See also
Web links
- Site of Rio Tinto (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Executive Committee
- ↑ Rio Tinto investors in line for $ 4bn special dividend thetimes.co.uk, dated February 27, 2019 (English)
- ^ The World's Largest Public Companies . In: Forbes . ( forbes.com [accessed July 17, 2018]).
- ↑ El corazón de la tierra (film Spain, 2007) [Link?]
- ^ Spiegel Online : Mine operator Anglo American: Competitors are considering takeover of $ 80 billion. August 21, 2006, accessed June 19, 2010 .
- ↑ Spiegel Online : FALLING RAW MATERIAL PRICES: Mining giant bursts mega takeover. November 25, 2008, accessed June 19, 2010 .
- ↑ Peter Ker: Rio Tinto sells Mozambique coal assets for $ US50 million. In: The Sydney Morning Herald . July 31, 2014, accessed February 26, 2018 .
- ↑ Fabian Urech: The largest iron ore treasure in the world slumbers in a chain of hills in Guinea. Many wanted to raise it, all of them failed. A report. The Simandou hill range in Guinea is worth more than 100 billion dollars. But everyone who has approached the huge iron ore supply so far has fallen into ruin. A story about a gold rush, corruption - and a railroad . NZZ Zurich, March 8, 2018
- ↑ Gerald Hosp: Rio Tinto is charged with corruption allegations. The mining company Rio Tinto suspends a senior manager. He is suspected of paying bribes. The affair also casts a bad light on former CEOs . NZZ Zurich, November 10, 2016
- ↑ hismelt.com
- ^ David Lea: Corporate and Public Responsibility, Stakeholder Theory and the Developing World. In: Business Ethics: A European Review. Bd./Jg. 8, No. 3, 1999, pp. 151-162. doi: 10.1111 / 1467-8608.00143
- ↑ BBC: Norway blacklists miner Rio Tinto (September 10, 2008)
- ↑ Press release from the Norwegian Ministry of Finance: The Government Pension Fund divests its holdings in mining company (September 9, 2008)
- ^ Australian Associated Press: Rio Tinto apologises to traditional owners after blasting 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site. In: theguardian.com. May 31, 2020, accessed on June 15, 2020 .
- ↑ Rio Tinto CEO stripped of millions over destruction of Aboriginal site (August 24, 2020) Bangkok Post