- Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) says its Q3 iron ore production rose 12% Y/Y to 86.1M metric tons, in line with analyst estimates and placing it on track to meet or exceed its full-year shipment guidance of 340M metric tons.
- Rio's Q3 shipments from the Pilbara region rose 16% Y/Y to 85.6M metric tons and beat estimates; ~93M tons need to ship from the Pilbara in Q4 to hit the overall production target.
- Deutsche analyst Paul Young says port data showed that Rio shipped at an annual run rate of 395M tons in the last week of September.
- Global iron ore shipments, which include Rio's Canadian operations, rose 17% to 91.3M metric tons in Q3, with YTD shipments 11% higher at 245.3M tons.
- Rio also produced 1.86M metric tons of hard coking coal in Q3, up 5% Y/Y, and 5.55M metric tons of semi-soft and thermal coal, up 8% Y/Y; Rio says its full-year coal guidance is unchanged at 18M-19M tons of thermal coal, 3M-3.4M tons of semi-soft coking coal, and 7.1M-8.1M tons of hard coking coal.