The miner reported underlying earnings of $6.85 billion for the six months through June, a 43% increase from a year earlier. Its copper division’s EBITDA surged 84% to $5.7 billion, while copper and aluminum together supplied about 56% of group profit — overtaking iron ore’s historic dominance.
Rio Tinto is up 14.51% year-to-date; the stock has strongly outperformed Global X Copper Miners ETF (NYSE:COPX), which is up 6.59% in the same period.
According to Reuters, CEO Simon Trott called it a "step-change in performance," citing higher commodity prices, increased copper output, and productivity gains. He also flagged "growing data center and grid storage battery demand" for copper and lithium.
That demand is delivering an immediate windfall. But the industry’s longer-term supply response rests on aging mines, concentrated processing capacity and increasingly unrealistic production plans.
The Smelting Chokepoint
