Trouble at Mill Hits Rio Tinto Copper Output

LONDON, July 15 -- Miner Rio Tinto continued to experience &quot;difficult&quot; conditions at its aluminum business during the second quarter, with production there down 5% on the same time last year.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Aluminium enjoyed a slight improvement on the first quarter, though, falling to 942,000 tonnes, 1% lower than the first three months.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Rio said a &quot;steady&quot; performance at the low cost Canadian smelters was hurt by production cutbacks in Canada and Europe and a transformer failure in New Zealand.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Elsewhere, production cutbacks in response to the sharp fall in demand had bauxite production down 14% year-on-year and alumina down 6%.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Global iron ore output increased though, up 8% on the second quarter of 2008, as production of Pilbara iron ore jumped 11% to 53 million tones as operations ran at full capacity.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Mined copper fell 1%, but refined copper jumped 23% thanks to an improved performance and higher concentrate grades at Kennecott Utah Copper and higher cathode production at Escondida.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Pre-tax and pre-divestment expenditure on exploration and evaluation dropped to $242m from $401m a year ago in an effort to cut controllable operating costs down by at least $2.5bn a year in 2010.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;Markets remained tough in the second quarter, as expected, particularly in aluminium,2 said chief executive Tom Albanese. &quot;The production curtailments announced in January in this product group have started to take effect and are reflected in this report.&quot;
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;We continue to press ahead with actions to reduce costs across the board, align production with demand, and bring down levels of net debt.&quot;
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The company has already completed a $15.2bn rights issue this month and agreed to sell assets worth $3.7bn.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (Source: ShareCast)
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