{"id":97136,"date":"2026-08-04T12:40:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T12:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/97136\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T12:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T12:40:07","slug":"rio-tinto-releases-h1-2026-production-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/97136\/","title":{"rendered":"Rio Tinto releases H1 2026 production results"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rio Tinto<\/a> reported a 38% increase in EBITDA for its Aluminium & Lithium segment compared to H1 2025. <\/p>\n

The Aluminium & Lithium segment (including bauxite, alumina, aluminium, and lithium) reported an underlying EBITDA of $3,311 million. <\/p>\n

This increase was driven by higher aluminium prices and product premiums. <\/p>\n

These benefits outweighed the impact of foreign exchange headwinds, inflation, and elevated energy and aluminium raw material prices.<\/p>\n

Simon Trott, CEO at Rio Tinto, noted that nearly 60% of Rio Tinto\u2019s overall underlying EBITDA of $14.8 billion was delivered from copper, aluminium, and lithium.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, segment revenue increased 24% year-on-year to $9,969 million. <\/p>\n

Aluminium <\/p>\n

The aluminium business generated $9,401 million in revenue and $3,093 million in EBITDA. <\/p>\n

Average realised prices, including LME pricing and product premiums, rose 39% year-on-year to $4,343 per tonne. <\/p>\n

Production remained flat at 1.68 million tonnes. <\/p>\n

However, higher output from Kitimat, New Zealand Aluminium Smelter (NZAS), and AP60, largely offset the planned closure of Arvida. <\/p>\n

Kitimat continued to ramp up to nameplate capacity, as improved hydrological conditions supported higher hydro power output, while NZAS operated at full capacity. <\/p>\n

The transition from Arvida to AP60 progressed to plan with the final potlines closed in June and AP60 continuing its ramp-up towards full capacity by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the AP60 expansion in Quebec, Canada, delivered first metal in March 2026. <\/p>\n

Furthermore, value-added products (VAP) accounted for 41% of primary aluminium sales, down from 46% in the first half of 2025.<\/p>\n

On the aluminium segment, Mr Trott said: \u201cWe’ve delivered around $40 million in annual savings across our Atlantic aluminium operations with a sharpened focus on contractor management. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis follows a focused Kaizen looking to remove bottlenecks across all sites. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, this is what operational excellence looks like in practice. It’s not about slogans; it’s about thousands of people making better decisions every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alumina<\/p>\n

The alumina segment recorded revenue of $1,528 million and an EBITDA of -$2 million. <\/p>\n

Realised prices dropped 29% to $308 per tonne.<\/p>\n

Production reached 4.0 million tonnes, up 8% year-on-year, reflecting full ownership of Queensland Alumina Limited (QAL). <\/p>\n

This was partially offset by weather and reliability events at Yarwun, Australia, and Vaudreuil, Canada. <\/p>\n

At Yarwun, Rio Tinto will reduce production by 40% from October 2026 to extend its life until 2035 and allow time to explore further life-extension and modernisation options.<\/p>\n

Bauxite <\/p>\n

Bauxite revenue stood at $1,479 million, with EBITDA at $464 million.<\/p>\n

Realised prices declined 27% year-on-year to $56 per dry metric tonne.<\/p>\n

Output dropped 7% to 28.5 million tonnes due to weather disruptions in Q1, which resulted in a 0.9 million tonne reduction in volume. <\/p>\n

However, production impact from the weather is expected to be recovered over the remainder of the year.<\/p>\n

2026 Outlook<\/p>\n

At the end of 2026, Rio Tinto expects to produce 3.25 to 3.45 million tonnes of aluminium; 7.6 to 8.0 million tonnes of alumina; and 58 to 61 million tonnes of bauxite.<\/p>\n

The full results are available here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rio Tinto reported a 38% increase in EBITDA for its Aluminium & Lithium segment compared to H1 2025.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20718],"tags":[25943,25946,25944,25947,25945,2095,645,3755,25948,12991,721,4006],"class_list":["post-97136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rio-tinto","tag-ait","tag-aluminium-magazine","tag-aluminium-publication","tag-aluminum-magazine","tag-aluminum-publication","tag-carbon","tag-international","tag-metal","tag-non-ferrous","tag-rio-tinto","tag-sustainability","tag-today"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117037290174216879","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97136","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=97136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}