Rio Tinto's Open Copper Sales Were 181 Million Pounds on Dec. 31

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) –Rio Tinto Group had 181 million pounds of so-called open copper shipments that will be priced in the first half of this year.

The sales were provisionally at $3.44 a pound at the end of last year, London-based Rio said in a statement today. Copper for March delivery was down 0.3 percent at $3.899 a pound on the Comex in New York today.

At the end of 2010, Rio had 270 million pounds of open copper shipments provisionally at $4.28 a pound, it said.

Mined copper production fell 23 percent last year due to lower grades at Kennecott Utah Copper, Escondida in Chile and Grasberg in Indonesia, Rio said.