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Rio has provided updates on its long-term strategy to strengthen business and continue development through decarbonisation.

Rio has provided updates on its long-term strategy to strengthen business and continue development through decarbonisation.

Rio Tinto anticipates demands to rise as much as 25 per cent “above traditional sources on a copper equivalent basis” across the group’s key products by 2035 due to the transition to cleaner energy. In order to sustain this demand, Rio is seeking investments of up to $3 billion per year from Oyu Tolgoi copper, Rincon lithium and Simandou iron ore projects.

These figures follow the company’s 2021 objective to nab roughly $7.5 billion in investments between 2022 and 2030, with portions being delegated to research and development investment, energy inputs and energy efficiency initiatives.

Rio executives will outline projects designed to meet various decarbonisation targets, including plans to halve scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050.

Speaking at an investor seminar presentation, Rio chief executive Jakob Stausholm praised the company’s strides in tackling climate change.

“From evolving our culture, to operational improvements and technology breakthroughs to address climate change, we are seeing early results that give us conviction we have the right objectives, the right team, and the right strategy,” he said.

“Meeting the incremental demand of the energy transition and ensuring local supplies of critical minerals globally deepens our relevance in the world and provides new opportunities. We are working hard to decarbonise our assets and products, as we invest to grow in materials needed for the energy transition.

“The quality of our assets, resilience of cashflows and strength of our balance sheet ensure we are well positioned to continue to invest with discipline for the long term and deliver attractive returns to our shareholders throughout the cycle.”

Rio also used the presentation to say there are now 30 deployments of its safe production system (SPS) across 16 sites, focusing on sustainably unlocking capacity and delivering the full potential of the company’s assets.

“Rollouts are ongoing to continuously improve safety, drive employee satisfaction and lift operational performance across Rio Tinto’s global portfolio, delivering benefits such as up to five million tonnes of production uplift expected at the Group’s Pilbara iron ore assets in 2023,” Rio said.