Chasing copper: Rio Tinto accelerates its clean energy transition with new deal

Rio Tinto has teamed up with the world’s largest copper producer to explore a major new tenement in Chile’s remote Atacama region as it races to meet soaring demand for a mineral that will help power the globe’s transition to renewable energy.

The mining giant will acquire Pan American Silver’s 58 per cent operating stake in Chile’s Agua de la Falda prospect for $45 million. The company will also purchase another nearby concession, Meridian Property, for $550,000.

Both transactions are on the basis of Rio providing new smelter royalties.

The remaining 42 per cent of Agua de la Falda is controlled by state-owned Codelco, the world’s largest producer of copper, which is a key ingredient in the wind turbines, transmission lines and electric cars that will help arrest global warming and enable the world to reach its net-zero emissions goals.

“Copper is critical for the global energy transition, which is at the heart of Rio Tinto’s strategy, and Chile is one of the most important sources of world supply as demand for copper in renewables and electrification grows,” Rio Tinto chief executive Jakob Stausholm said.

Stausholm has firmly set Australia’s second-largest miner on a path to dig up and produce “future-facing” minerals like copper and nickel that are increasingly sought after to accelerate the clean energy transition.

Rio bet last month that the world’s appetite for recycled aluminium will expand rapidly, teeing up a deal to buy half of the Canadian metal-recycling business Metalco from the Ontario-based Giampaolo Group for $US700 million ($1.04 billion).

Stausholm said the latest partnership with Codelco was “essential to find better ways to provide materials the world needs”.