On November 28, Australian mining giant Rio Tinto stated in an investor seminar held in Sydney that it has raised its production capacity expansion target in the Pilbara region of Western Australia by 20 million mt to 353 million mt per year by the first half of 2015, from around 240 million mt per year now.
Rio Tinto's chief executive Tom Albanese said that in the company's Pilbara expansion there are options to increase capacity further from 353 million mt to 453 million mt per year.
Rio Tinto continues to see an attractive long-term demand picture for iron ore, leading the global mining house to step up expansion work at its mines. Year-on-year growth in Chinese steel consumption and other growth economies such as India should still be on an upward demand trajectory at this point.
In the medium term, Rio Tinto forecasts that industry supply will need to increase by 100 million mt per year for each of the next eight years to meet demand growth and replace high cost supply. Rio Tinto expects to supply around 25 percent of this industry growth.