The world's fourth-most valuable mining company. Rio Tinto stopped mining coal in 2018. It runs the Bingham Canyon mine in Utah, which produces around 275,000 tonnes of copper a year, nearly a quarter of American output. The Resolution Copper mine in Arizona, a joint venture between Rio Tinto and BHP, could if approved meet another quarter of American demand.
Rio Tinto backs the Simandou iron-ore project in Guinea, one of the largest in the world, which started operations in late 2025 alongside several Chinese firms.
In 2026 Rio Tinto confirmed talks to acquire Glencore, a Swiss-British competitor. The deal would create the world's biggest miner, worth around $220bn at current valuations. A combined entity would produce about 1.6m tonnes of copper a year, roughly 7% of total global mine output. Rio's share price fell on the news, partly reflecting lingering questions about what it would do with Glencore's coal assets and trading business.
genealogy, n.: An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.