Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) reports full-year production fell across all commodities it produces, including a 3% drop in iron ore shipments 321.6M metric tons from its Australian mining operations as projects were disrupted by COVID-related restrictions that made it hard to get workers.
Q4 iron ore shipments fell 5% Y/Y to 84.1M mt, hurt by a delay in production from the new greenfield mine at Gudai-Darri in Western Australia and labor shortages due to prolonged pandemic-led interstate border closures.
Among other commodities, Rio produced 7% less mined copper in FY 2021 at 494K mt, 1% less aluminum at 3.15M mt, and 3% less bauxite at 54.3M mt.
For 2022, Rio expects slightly higher iron ore shipments from the Pilbara region, guiding for exports of 320M-335M mt, while forecasting copper output of 500K-575K mt and aluminum of 3.1M-3.2M mt.