UPDATE 1-Rio Q2 refined copper output falls 18 pct

Tag : refined copper

SYDNEY, July 16 (Reuters) - Global miner Rio Tinto Ltd/Plc's second-quarter refined copper output tumbled 18 percent from thesame period a year ago, facing lower yields at some operations,while production of iron ore, weighted toward sales in China, rose13 percent, the company said on Wednesday.
'Chinese GDP is continuing to grow at around 10 percent per annum,demand is strong while supply remains constrained,' Rio ChiefExecutive Tom Albanese said in a statement.
Rio Tinto, which late last year acquired Canadian aluminium groupAlcan and is now fighting an unsolicited $145 billion all-shareoffer by larger rival BHP Billiton (nyse: BBL - news - people ) Ltd/Plc , said aluminium output rose nearly five-fold over the period butfell 1 percent versus the previous quarter.
Iron ore production jumped despite a major gas outage hitting thePilbara mining region in Western Australia.
'Expansion projects remain on schedule and on budget despitechallenges posed by the Apache (nyse: APA - news - people ) outage and weather conditions,' Rio Tinto said.
Output of bauxite and alumina, needed to make aluminium, was up 110percent and 231 percent respectively.
Australian thermal and coking coal production was up 15 percent and25 percent respectively, 'recovering well from flooding set backsearlier in the year,' Albanese said.
Record quarterly mined copper production was up 15 percent on thecorresponding quarter, it said.
At its 30 percent-owned Chilean Escondida mine, the world's largestcopper mine, Rio Tinto's share of mined copper rose 22 percent,though refined production suffered from trucking and shovelingcurtailments.
(Reporting by James Regan, Editing by Sonali Paul)
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