Rio Tinto Group
Rio Tinto is a multinational
mining and resources group founded originally in 1873. The group is one of the world's largest mining companies, with a pre-tax profit of approximately 3.6 billion US dollars in 2004 on consolidated turnover of 14.1 billion USD.
Since 1995, Rio Tinto has been a
dual listed company. Rio Tinto Limited, formerly known as CRA, is listed on the
Australian Stock Exchange, with Rio Tinto plc (formerly RTZ) listed on the
London Stock Exchange as well as
New York Stock Exchange (under ticker RTP). The two companies are managed as a single economic unit by a unified board, with a share in either company entitling the owner to the same voting rights and dividend payouts. RTZ shareholders made up 76.7% of the new unified entity, which is primarily managed from London. Its current
chief executive is
Leigh Clifford and the company board is chaired by Paul Skinner.
Rio Tinto's origins are in southern Spain, at the site of an ancient mine which supplied the
Roman Empire. In 1873
N M Rothschild & Sons of
London and
de Rothschild Frères of
Paris joined with other investors to acquire the
Spanish government's money-losing Rio Tinto mines. The new owners restructured the company and turned it into a profitable business. By 1905, the Rothchild interest in Rio Tinto amounted to more than 30 percent. According to the Penguin "History of the Spanish Civil War" in 1937 Franco made an agreement with Hitler to buy German bombers, these bombers were paid for with copper from Rio Tinto's mines in Spain. That history of the Spanish Civil War does not reveal whether Franco paid Rio or the copper was "donated" or otherwise expropriated.
In 1962 the (British) Rio Tinto Company acquired a majority stake in Consolidated Zinc, an Australian company, and was renamed the Rio Tinto-Zinc Corporation (RTZ). The Australian company was renamed Conzinc Riotinto of Australia (CRA) but retained a separate corporate identity, with an increasing proportion of its shares being held by the Australian public.
The current dual listed company structure was created in 1995.
The group produces a number of mineral commodities in its various divisions:
Rio Tinto wholly owns
Hamersley Iron, which owns and operates a number of mines in
Western Australia either wholly or jointly with several partners. Its partners on some projects notably include several Chinese corporations.
Rio Tinto also owns 53% of
Robe River Iron Associates and 59% of the
Iron Ore Company of Canada.
Iron made up 18% of revenue in 2003 and was responsible for 36% of the group's profit. It is the world's second-largest producer of iron ore.
Energy
The company's energy group includes
coal mining operations in Australia and North America, and more controversially
Energy Resources of Australia, which operates the
Ranger Uranium Mine near the
Kakadu National Park. This group contributed 20% of turnover and 11% of profit.
Industrial minerals
The Industrial minerals group extracts
talc,
titanium dioxide,
salt,
borax, amongst several others. These operations are scattered across
Australia, the
United States, and
Africa. This group contributed 15% of turnover and 11% of earnings.
Rio Tinto owns
Comalco, which mines
bauxite (aluminium ore) in
Weipa,
Queensland, operates alumina refineries in
Gladstone, Queensland and
Sardinia,
Italy. It also operates two aluminium smelters in Australia at
Bell Bay (
Tasmania) and
Boyne Island (Queensland, 59% interest), and one in New Zealand at
Tiwai Point (79% interest). The group also operates the
Anglesey Aluminium smelter at
Holyhead in the
United Kingdom. This group contributed 16% of turnover and 14% of adjusted earnings.
The company's diamond operations are best known for the
pink diamonds produced at the
Argyle diamond mine in Western Australia, which produces over 90% of the world's supply of these gems and around 30% of the world's annual production of all natural diamonds. The company also owns 60% of and manages the
Diavik Diamond Mine in
Canada's
Northwest Territories, and the
Murowa diamond mine in
Zimbabwe.
The copper division not only produces copper itself, but a considerable quantity of
gold from its mines in
Australia,
Indonesia,
South Africa,
Chile, and the
United States, some as part of joint ventures. The group owns
Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation. The copper group was responsible for 23% of turnover (of which 55% was copper and most of the remainder gold) and 32% of profits in 2003.
The company also has a technology group conducting
research and development, notably including the HIsmelt iron
smelting process, and an
exploration group.
There have been numerous environmental, political, safety and labour rights concerns raised by both environmental groups and unions, in particular the
Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU). The CFMEU ran a successful campaign against the company which tried to de-unionise its workforce after the introduction of the
Howard Government's
Workplace Relations Act 1996.
Another has been Rio Tinto's involvement in Papua New Guinea which triggered the Bougainville separatist crisis. See Lea, David (1999) Corporate and Public Responsibility, Stakeholder Theory and the Developing World, Business Ethics: A European Review, 8 (3): 151-162.
Rio Tinto has also won an award for ethicial behaviour, the
Worldaware Award for Sustainable development. However, although this award was decided by an independent committe, it was, like some other WorldAware Awards, sponsored by another multinational corporation (in this case, the sponsor was Tate and Lyle). Rio Tinto has, in turn, sponsored their own WorldAware award - the
Rio Tinto Award for Long-term Commitment, which was awarded to a variety of local and multinational players including in 1999 to Shell Pakistan.
*
Rio Tinto global corporate website*
The RIO TINTO Campaign site
