Future of Rio Tinto Group
CATEGORIES
- Asset Performance
- Innovation assets and pipeline
- Disruption vulnerability
- Company headlines
- Company’s future prospects
DATA ACCESS
Rio Tinto is an Australian-British global company and one of the biggest mining and metals corporations in the world. The company was established in 1873, when a global consortium of investors acquired a mine complex on the Rio Tinto, in Huelva, Spain, from the Spanish government. Since then, the company has expanded through a long series of consolidations and acquisitions to place itself among the top companies in the globe in the production of many commodities, including iron ore, uranium, diamonds, aluminum, copper, and coal. Although primarily concentrated on the extraction of minerals, Rio Tinto also has major operations in refining, specifically for refining bauxite and iron ore. The company has operations in various continents but is primarily focused in Australia and Canada, and owns its mining operations through a complex web of partly and wholly owned subsidiaries. The company has joint head offices in Melbourne ("Limited" – Australia) and London (global and "plc").
Innovation assets and Pipeline
All company data collected from its 2016 annual report and other public sources. The accuracy of this data and the conclusions derived from them depend on this publicly accessible data. If a data point listed above is discovered to be inaccurate, Quantumrun will make the necessary corrections to this live page.
DISRUPTION VULNERABILITY
Belonging to the energy sector means this company will be affected directly and indirectly by a number of disruptive opportunities and challenges over the coming decades. While described in detail within Quantumrun’s special reports, these disruptive trends can be summarized along the following broad points:
*First off, the most obvious disruptive trend is the shrinking cost and increasing energy generating capacity of renewable sources of electricity, such as wind, tidal, geothermal and (especially) solar. The economics of renewables are advancing at such a rate that further investments into more traditional sources of electricity, such as coal, gas, petroleum, and nuclear, are becoming less competitive in many parts of the world.
*Concurrent with the growth of renewables is the shrinking cost and increasing energy storing capacity of utility-scale batteries that can store electricity from renewables (like solar) during the day for release during the evening.
*The energy infrastructure in much of North America and Europe is decades old and is currently in the two-decade-long process of being rebuilt and reimagined. This will result in the installation of smart grids that are more stable and resilient, and will spur the development of a more efficient and decentralized energy grid in many parts of the world.
*The growing cultural awareness and acceptance of climate change is accelerating the public's demand for clean energy, and ultimately, their government's investment into cleantech infrastructure projects.
*As Africa, Asia, and South America continue to develop over the next two decades, their populations’ increasing demand first world living conditions will spur demand for modern energy infrastructure that will keep energy sector building contracts going strong into the foreseeable future.
*Significant breakthroughs in Thorium and fusion energy will be made by the mid-2030s, leading to their rapid commercialization and global adoption.