Australian mining giant Rio Tinto's iron ore CEO Sam Walsh on March 23 said that the proposed iron ore joint venture with larger Australian rival BHP Billiton will probably be delayed because of regulatory problems.
"We'd expect that approvals would be more likely later this year than the original time frame," he said at a conference in the Western Australian city of Perth, according to news sources.
Stating that efforts are continuing in commercial, regulatory and integration fields to realize the joint venture, Walsh described the process as "very complex and demanding."
The joint venture, which is planned to save US$10 billion by merging the iron ore operations of the two companies in the second half of 2010, has been met with a sharp negative reaction from steelmakers worldwide.
The European Commission recently announced that it had started an investigation on the proposed venture.