Rio Tinto chief executive officer Jakob Stausholm has detailed the company’s plans to grow its critical minerals base following its $US6.7 billion acquisition of Arcadium Lithium.
Rio Tinto Lithium – Arcadium’s new name – aims to grow the capacity of its Tier 1 assets to over 200,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent per annum by 2028.
Aiding this goal is Rio’s Rincon project, which received approval for a $2.5 billion expansion in December 2024 and is set to be the company’s first lithium mine.
“(It’s) producing right now, and we are progressing with a full-scale project,” Stausholm said at the 2025 Bank of America Global Metals, Mining and Steel Conference.
“We closed the deal of Arcadium in the first quarter and (Rio Tinto Lithium is) now under the leadership of Paul Graves … we now are perhaps the world’s second largest holder of lithium. It’s for us to develop that lithium, the world needs it.
“The key thing for us is not so much about how big we become. We are a leader of DLE (direct lithium extraction) technology and we can, with the resources we have, bring in production at the lowest cost point, so we are very excited about that.”
Stausholm touched on Rio’s iron ore business, which includes the Simandou project in Guinea, considered to be the world’s largest untapped iron ore project.
“We have what I would call the ‘jewel of the crown’: our iron ore business,” Stausholm said. “We have rejuvenated that over the last few years.
“We have got replacement mines in place in the Pilbara (region of Western Australia). We have secured roads for the long-term future. We are developing Simandou at speed and the iron ore business is now stronger than it has been for a long period of time.”
Rio’s aluminium and copper portfolios are also expected to deliver long-term value amid the global energy transition.
“We have a tremendous energy transition business in terms of the Western world’s largest aluminium business,” Stausholm said. “It’s developing extremely well at the moment, becoming more and more profitable every month (and) production is going really, really well.
“Secondly, we might not have the biggest copper business in the room but we have a very strong growing copper business, with a strong pipeline … Oyu Tolgoi’s ramp up is going extremely well. We have got all the key infrastructure in place. We are following the schedule to minute detail, and we will produce 50 per cent more copper at Oyu Tolgoi this year than last year.”
Backed by one of the world’s largest lithium resource bases and one of the largest copper deposit globally, Rio is poised to provide the critical minerals needed for a decarbonised society.