On April 17, Rio Tinto released its first quarter 2020 production performance report. According to the report, Rio Tinto's iron ore production reached 77.8 million tons in the first quarter, down 7% month on month and up 2% year on year.
In the first quarter of 2020, the iron ore development volume in Pilbara area is 73 million tons (100% equity basis), an increase of 5% compared with the first quarter of 2019. This is mainly due to the strong recovery of the entire operating network in March after the transit impact of Hurricane Damien gradually subsided in February 2020.
Rio Tinto said in the report that it will continue to maintain the production target of iron ore in 2020, namely 324-334 million tons; the unit cost of Pilbara iron ore in 2020 will remain unchanged at 14-15 US dollars / ton.
Rio said that novel coronavirus pneumonia related prevention and control measures had been affected, but all major projects in the first quarter of 2020 were progressing smoothly. After border control and novel coronavirus pneumonia control, the construction of Western Australia is still advancing, and key posts are still on duty. Koodaideri iron ore project is still expected to gradually reach production capacity in early 2022. Other projects in Pilbara were basically carried out according to the original plan, including the second phase of Western Turner syncline mine project and the capacity maintenance project of Robe River Joint Venture (including Xi'an gillas C and D projects and Massa B, C and H projects in the Lop River Valley). The application for environmental permit of Massah project is in progress.
