Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto yesterday posted a fall in first-quarter iron ore production, blaming bad weather over western Australia.
January to March output of 66.4 million tonnes of ore was below most forecasts and 6 percent, or 4 million tonnes, down on the last three months of last year.
The world’s second-largest mining company pointed to cyclone activity, which often plagues first-quarter figures from the resource-rich Pilbara region in Western Australia.
“Production in the first quarter was below fourth quarter levels due to disruption caused by seasonal weather patterns,” Rio said.
“Heavy rainfall associated with this cyclone and other adverse weather conditions in January and February impacted across mine, rail and port operations,” it said in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange.
Chief executive Sam Walsh said Rio Tinto had “started the year with a series of performance records as we continue to drive productivity gains across our operations.”
“Our Pilbara iron ore business has again set new benchmarks for production, shipments and rail volumes for the first quarter and we are well on track to reach nameplate capacity of 290 million tonnes per annum by the end of the first half of 2014,” he said.
Iron ore guidance was unchanged with Rio saying it remained on track to meet full-year targets of about 295 million tonnes from Australia and Canada.
Copper production also slipped from the last quarter of last year, down 6 percent to 156,500 tonnes. However, copper output was up 17 percent on the first quarter of last year.
Analysts welcomed Rio confirming full-year guidance and the share price gained A$0.09 or 0.14 percent to end at A$63.35.
The company staged a dramatic turnaround last year to report a US$3.67 billion annual net profit after major cost-cutting that saw thousands of workers sacked and capital spending slashed.
Walsh was brought to turn around the firm, which lost US$3.03 billion in 2012 after US$14.36 billion in writedowns.
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
RSS