{"id":84510,"date":"2026-07-16T21:52:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T21:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/84510\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T21:52:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T21:52:14","slug":"bhp-and-rio-tinto-hit-iron-ore-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/84510\/","title":{"rendered":"BHP and Rio Tinto hit iron ore records"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a lot said and written about Rio <\/a>Tinto<\/a> (ASX:RIO) and BHP Group<\/a> (ASX:BHP), but one thing can\u2019t be denied: they sure know how to produce iron ore<\/a>. The latest quarterly reports from both show that clearly.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s review what they\u2019re telling us.<\/p>\n

Rio Tinto\u2019s report comes out first. Rio has achieved its highest production level in Western Australia\u2019s Pilbara region since the company record was set in 2018.<\/p>\n

Total iron ore sales for the second quarter are up 5% year-over-year. Rio produced 164.5 million tonnes (Mt) of iron ore in the first half of the year. It means the company is on track to hit full-year guidance.<\/p>\n

Overall, global steel production remains broadly flat. China\u2019s is down on the same period in 2025 and the rest of the world is stagnant for the moment. China is lifting steel exports as demand stays subdued at home.<\/p>\n

One final interesting point from Rio is that higher diesel costs are lifting the iron ore cost curve, especially for marginal producers with greater exposure to these higher costs.<\/p>\n

That brings us to BHP.<\/p>\n

The \u2018big Australian\u2019 reported record iron ore production of 265 million tonnes (Mt) for FY26. That is up 1% on the previous year. BHP is aiming to hit somewhere around the same in FY27 too, between 260\u2013272Mt.<\/p>\n

BHP also has the medium-term goal of getting to more than 300Mt a year.<\/p>\n

Generally, iron ore has not been particularly volatile this year. It\u2019s traded between US$95\u2013110 ($135.69\u2013$157.12) per tonne for the first six months of 2026. Chinese port inventories are reported to be a high 160Mt.<\/p>\n

That suggests no shortage in the market alongside the global seaborne exports rising too, not just from Australia but also Brazil.<\/p>\n

As such, there\u2019s nothing to suggest the iron ore price will take off aggressively anytime soon, absent some major stimulus in China or some disruption to current production and exports.<\/p>\n

Of course, BHP is facing industrial action in the Pilbara. If this escalates, the company could be forced to downgrade guidance. For the moment, the market appears sanguine about this risk.<\/p>\n

Market observers are also watching the ramp-up of Rio\u2019s Simandou mine in Guinea, West Africa, with interest. At the moment, the volumes being shipped out aren\u2019t enough to substantially shift the market \u2014 or the iron ore price.<\/p>\n

What we can say is that BHP<\/a> and Rio <\/a>Tinto<\/a> have set the gold standard in recent years for hitting guidance and delivering strong results from their iron ore divisions. If that changes, the iron ore market might yet get caught short.<\/p>\n

Write to Callum Newman<\/a> at Mining.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n

Images: Unsplash\u00a0<\/p>\n

Add to Watch List:Bhp GroupRio TintoIron Ore<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a lot said and written about Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) and BHP Group (ASX:BHP), but one thing can\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20718],"tags":[24820,26238,21078,12991],"class_list":["post-84510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rio-tinto","tag-asx","tag-bhp","tag-rio","tag-rio-tinto"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116931876835361388","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}