RIO.L - Rio Tinto Group

Premarket London: Antofagasta Sees Modest Hit From Chile Riots

Investing.com -- Here's a summary of regulatory news from the London Stock Exchange on Wednesday, 23rd October. Please refresh for updates.

RPT-COLUMN-Sustainability the new battleground for aluminium producers: Andy Home

The U.S. aluminium producer has just announced a five-year review of around 4.0 million tonnes of alumina capacity and 1.5 million tonnes of smelter capacity. It's not quite an annual event but Alcoa shareholders have been here many times before as the company keeps trying to move down the cost curve in the face of chronically depressed prices. On the London Metal Exchange (LME) three-month aluminium has ground steadily lower over the course of 2019 and at a current $1,720 per tonne is close to the near three-year low of $1,705 recorded earlier this month.

UPDATE 1-Rio Tinto considering options for New Zealand aluminium smelter

Global miner Rio Tinto Ltd said it will conduct a strategic review of its stake in New Zealand's Aluminium Smelter (NZAS), citing weakness in the aluminium market. The miner said it was considering all options for the site, including possible curtailment or closure. The move comes a week after the miner downplayed its annual aluminium production guidance and flagged challenging conditions in the industry.

Norway’s $1 Trillion Fund Builds Rio Stake After Dirty Mine Sold

(Bloomberg) -- After freezing out Rio Tinto Group for more than a decade for owning a highly polluting copper mine, one of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth funds has brought the company back into the fold.Norway’s $1 trillion wealth fund built a 1.4% stake in the world’s No. 2 miner by the end of September, according to Bloomberg data. That puts the fund among the top 10 holders of Rio Tinto shares, the data show.The investment demonstrates the value of meeting the increasingly aggressive environmental goals set by some of the largest money managers. Norway’s wealth fund is at the forefront of those efforts, and said earlier this year it would stop investing in companies that mine more than 20 million tons a year of thermal coal, the most polluting fuel. Miners including Glencore Plc and Anglo American Plc are set to fall foul of this rule.Norway refused to buy Rio Tinto stock for more than a decade because of the environmental damage caused by its Grasberg mine in Indonesia, one of the world’s biggest copper and gold projects. In June, the fund said it had revoked that exclusion, after a recommendation from its Council on Ethics.Rio agreed to sell its stake in Grasberg last year for $3.5 billion. The mine, operated by U.S. company Freeport-McMoRan Inc., is highly contentious. Every year it dumps tens of millions of tons of mining waste into an Indonesian river system and will continue to do so for years to come.Rio has sought to burnish its environmental credentials, becoming increasingly vocal on the subject. After offloading its last coal mine in 2018, the company has sought to distinguish itself from rivals that still have fossil-fuel exposure.To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Biesheuvel in London at tbiesheuvel@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Thomasson at lthomasson@bloomberg.net, Dylan Griffiths, Nicholas LarkinFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

UPDATE 2-European shares pause as Brexit deal reports swirl

European stocks pulled back slightly on Wednesday from their strongest closing high in more than a year as clashing headlines on Britain's last-minute efforts to forge a divorce deal with the European Union left investors hanging on the outcome. Hopes of a breakthrough took the pan-European STOXX 600 to its highest close since May 2018 on Tuesday, but the index closed down 0.1% with London's exporter-laden FTSE 100 , which tends to fall when the pound gains, lagging the most with a 0.6% decline. A report that the main stumbling block to a deal had been removed to news that the talks had hit a "standstill" made for a choppy trading session, but expectations of a no-deal Brexit faded.

European shares tepid before Brexit talks resume

European shares dipped on Wednesday, after dramatic swings over the past week, as uncertainty over the outcome of London's last-ditch Brexit talks with Brussels kept investors on the sidelines. Brexit negotiations will resume in Brussels on Wednesday morning after "constructive" negotiations went into the night on Tuesday, a British spokesman said. Britain's domestically-focused midcaps slipped 0.2% after climbing recently on hopes of a Brexit deal.

UK stocks ease as market awaits Brexit deal update

UPDATE 1-At least two dead in Guinea protests against change to constitution

At least one policeman and a protester were killed on Monday during demonstrations in Guinea against a possible change to the constitution that could let President Alpha Conde seek a third term, officials and residents said. Police opened fire on demonstrators as they ransacked military posts and blocked roads with burning tyres in the capital Conakry and protests in the northern opposition stronghold of Mamou also turned violent, witnesses said. Conde's second and final five-year term expires in 2020 but the 81-year-old leader has refused to rule out running again.

Rio Tinto and Minmetals look for copper, zinc and lead in China

Rio Tinto is looking for copper and zinc-lead deposits in four Chinese regions, including Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, as part of an exploration venture with state-owned China Minmetals Corp , a spokeswoman for the Anglo-Australian Miner said on Friday. The two companies set up a 50-50 joint venture (JV) to explore for what they called world-class mineral deposits in China in June 2018, but it was not previously clear which minerals they were looking for or which regions they were targeting. Technical teams are carrying out field assessments in the major mineral belts of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, as well as in China's southwestern Yunnan province and northeastern Heilongjiang, the Rio spokesperson said in an email.

Rio Tinto signs its first Renminbi portside trading contract

Rio Tinto, one of the world's top iron ore miners, signed its first spot trading contract denominated in Chinese Renminbi on Friday, in an effort to diversify procurement channels for Chinese customers. The Anglo-Australian mining giant held a signing ceremony at Rizhao Port in China's eastern province of Shandong, offering 10,000 tonnes of mid-grade iron ore SP10 to Shanxi Gaoyi Steel Co Ltd, said Zhang Qi, director of foreign ore at the Shanxi firm. "We believe port sales could potentially help us to better serve our existing customers, as well as potentially opening up an opportunity to sell to new customers who do not participate in the seaborne market," a Rio Tinto representative was quoted as saying.

Indian miners lobby against government plans for national coal index

Indian miners are lobbying against a government proposal to link a new coal index to international prices, documents reviewed by Reuters show, which could delay creation of the index. India plans to create a national coal index to end state-run Coal India's control over prices and privatise the coal sector, as the energy-hungry nation for the first time looks to invite bids from global firms for coal mining blocks by end-2019. A government panel has proposed two price formulas, both of which use prices of imported coal to arrive at a benchmark, government documents reviewed by Reuters showed.

UPDATE 2-Top-5 BHP investor Aberdeen Standard piles on climate pressure ahead of AGM

One of BHP's biggest shareholders Aberdeen Standard Investments on Wednesday added to pressure for the world's leading miner to cut ties with lobby groups it says are at odds with the company's pledges on climate leadership. Earlier, the Church of England Pensions Board urged shareholder advisers to review their opposition to a resolution calling on BHP to withdraw from groups that lobby for policies inconsistent with global climate change limitation goals. Aberdeen Standard Investments, which holds around 3.2% of BHP's stock, said it was taking the rare step of speaking out ahead of a vote at BHP's annual shareholder meeting in London on Oct. 17 because of the urgency of tackling climate change, and after its research found the lobby groups were the biggest single obstacle to progress.

UPDATE 1-Fortescue, SMB-Winning go head-to-head to develop Guinea's Simandou iron ore

Australian miner Fortescue and Guinea's biggest bauxite exporter SMB-Winning are the last two companies in the running for the rights to develop blocks 1 and 2 of Guinea's Simandou iron ore deposit, three sources told Reuters on Friday. A Guinea government commission in charge of the international tender for Simandou blocks 1 and 2 should come to a final decision in around a month, the sources close to the commission said. Guinea has struggled for decades to develop its Simandou iron ore deposit which is among the world's biggest and contains billions of tonnes of high-grade ore.

LIVE MARKETS-An uneasy feeling of deja vu

* European shares tread water * STOXX 600 up 0.2% after slightly negative start * Volumes below average * JPM raises euro-zone stocks to "overweight" * ECB's Draghi emphasises need for fiscal push * Wall Street opens higher Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of European equity markets brought to you by Reuters stocks reporters and anchored today by Josephine Mason. Reach her on Messenger to share your thoughts on market moves: rm://josephine.mason.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net AN UNEASY FEELING OF DEJA VU (1348 GMT) The markets are looking eerily similar to this time last year as Q4 approaches and Morgan Stanley's equity strategist Michael Wilson says he's got a feeling of deju vu.