Industrial minerals Essential ingredients of everyday living

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1 Essential ingredients of everyday living

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3 Our industrial minerals business Rio Tinto is a leading international business involved in each stage of metal and mineral production. The Group combines Rio Tinto plc, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, and Rio Tinto Limited, which is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. Cover image Titanium dioxide is used as a pigment in paper, plastics and paints. It is favoured for its brilliant whiteness. Left Dampier salt operations, located close to the town of Karratha, on the northern coast of Western Australia. Dampier now produces 4 million tonnes of salt per year, largely for use in the chemicals industry. Below Salt sourced from Port Hedland, Dampier, Australia. We are among the world s largest producers of several industrial minerals mined products that are used in an astonishing array of products and processes that are essential to everyday living. In fact, it would be impossible to get through a day without encountering the industrial minerals we produce. Our industrial minerals portfolio includes titanium dioxide feedstock, rutile, zircon, pig iron, steel, metal powders, borates, salt and gypsum. These minerals are essential ingredients in the food you eat, as well as your clothing, housing, transportation and entertainment systems. The global demand for industrial minerals is linked very closely to urbanisation and rising standards of living. As growing populations migrate to urban areas and diets, housing and transportation improve, food producers and manufacturers require industrial minerals in larger volumes. also contribute to higher environmental standards through their use in renewable energy production, insulation and lighter, more fuel efficient cars and by lowering energy use and emissions in the production of glass, paint, plastics and ceramics. are valued for their physical and chemical properties. For instance, they might be used to increase crop yields, trap heat, absorb neutrons, improve flame retardancy, strengthen building materials, make industrial processes cleaner and replace more harmful chemicals. The useful tasks that these minerals perform vary depending upon the application. Sometimes, industrial minerals are one of the main components of the end product, such as gypsum in wallboard. Other end products use only trace amounts. However, without that mineral content, the product would not perform. Boron, for instance, is an essential micronutrient for all plants and boron deficiency affects almost all major crops grown around the world. Without borate nutrients, crop yields and quality can be greatly reduced. It is these abilities that make our industrial minerals in the right form and in the right application so valuable. The global demand for industrial minerals is linked very closely to urbanisation and rising standards of living. 1

4 Our industrial mineral operations Rio Tinto s industrial minerals operations are located in Europe, Africa, North America and Australia, and form part of Rio Tinto s Diamonds & Minerals product group. Our industrial minerals operations are managed as three separate businesses: Rio Tinto Minerals (RTM), which produces borates and has development projects for lithium and potash; Rio Tinto Iron & Titanium (RTIT), which mainly produces titanium dioxide feedstocks and Dampier Salt Limited (DSL) which produces salt and gypsum. 2

5 Rio Tinto Minerals Left The processing facility for Rio Tinto Minerals from the visitor centre overlooking Boron in California, US. Right Borates are used as a stengthening agent in glass nail polish bottles. Borates Borates are a group of products derived from boron containing minerals. They are key ingredients in fibreglass, glass used in electronics and cookware ceramics, fertilisers, detergents, wood preservatives and numerous other products. Rio Tinto Minerals (RTM Rio Tinto: 100 per cent) supplies about one-third of global demand for refined borates and is acknowledged as the world leader in borate technology, research and development. We produce borates from our open pit mine at Boron, in California s Mojave Desert, which has been operating since Boron is one of two world class borate deposits on the planet. We process our borate ore locally into a wide range of products, including borax pentahydrate and boric acid. Further refining and processing takes place in Coudekerque, France and Wilmington, California. We also have shipping terminals in Wilmington; Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Nules, Spain; Port Klang, Malaysia; and Changshu, China, and a global network of sales offices and stock points. The largest use for borates is in the manufacture of various glass products. Borates improve the insulating properties in insulation fiberglass, provide the thermal expansion and chemical resistance properties for cookware, pharmaceutical and laboratory glass, textile fiberglass, thin film transistors used in liquid crystal displays (LCDs) for televisions and computer screens and glass components of solar heating devices. Other uses for borates include detergents, soaps and personal care products; ceramic and enamel frits and glazes and tile bodies; and agricultural micronutrients, wood preservatives, and flame retardants. Through their many uses, borates offer various performance, cost, environmental, health and safety advantages. In insulation fibreglass, for instance, borates biggest single use, they help reduce the energy needed to produce the glass melt. The finished insulation product helps conserve energy by trapping heat inside insulated structures. 3

6 Rio Tinto Iron & Titanium Below An example of hard rock ilmenite ore from Havre-Saint-Pierre, in Canada. We process ilmenite using our proprietary smelting technology to separate the iron and concentrate the titanium dioxide into high grade feedstock, used mainly by the pigment industry. The Rio Tinto Iron & Titanium (RTIT) business mines ilmenite in Canada, South Africa and Madagascar, which is upgraded into a high quality titanium dioxide feedstock product. Co-products include rutile, zircon, high purity iron, steel and metal powders. Ilmenite is one of the primary sources of titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ), which is a very white, opaque compound that is an important pigment used in products such as paint, plastics and paper. TiO 2 reflects and scatters light like thousands of tiny mirrors, and when used as a pigment it gives brilliance and opacity to these materials. Other, smaller volume uses for TiO 2 include cosmetics, sun screen and toothpaste. While TiO 2 is bright white, ilmenite itself is brown or black, due to its iron content. We process ilmenite using our proprietary smelting technology to separate the iron and concentrate the titanium dioxide into high grade feedstock, used mainly by the pigment industry. Pigment manufacturers refine the feedstock further to produce a titanium dioxide pigment. Titanium dioxide feedstock is RTIT s primary product, but we also sell other products derived during the mining or processing of ilmenite. The iron separated from ilmenite during our proprietary smelting process produces a high purity pig iron, which is either sold directly to customers or processed further into steel billets or metal powders. Ilmenite is mined either from hard rock deposits, or from accumulations in ancient beach sands. In Quebec s North Shore (Canada), Rio Tinto Fer et Titane (Rio Tinto 100 per cent) operates an open cast mine at Lac Tio near Havre Saint Pierre, one of the largest ilmenite deposits in the world. This hard rock ilmenite is processed by Rio Tinto Fer et Titane at its Sorel-Tracy metallurgical complex, 75 kilometres north-east of Montreal. From Richards Bay Minerals (RBM) (Rio Tinto 74 per cent) in South Africa, we produce ilmenite from coastal sand dunes. The RBM orebody is mined using a system of ponds and floating dredges. The sands are sucked up by the dredges onto floating concentrators, where the valuable heavy minerals (ilmenite, rutile and zircon) are separated, and the remaining sand particles are then used to reconstruct and rehabilitate the landscape after mining has finished. RBM s product portfolio also includes rutile and zircon, two other minerals found in its sand deposits. Rutile is a naturally occurring high grade titanium dioxide feedstock used in the pigment industry as well as to produce titanium metal and to manufacture welding rods. Zircon s principal uses are in the ceramics (in particular bathroom tiles), foundry, chemicals and refractory industries. 4

7 Below Titanium dioxide is used to provide opacity to paint. QIT Madagascar Minerals (QMM) (Rio Tinto 80 per cent) is a mineral sands operation based around an ilmenite orebody near Fort Dauphin, southern Madagascar. It comprises a mine, separation plant and port facilities. This joint venture with the Government of Madagascar began producing ilmenite at the end of QMM produces ilmenite from beach sands which is shipped to Rio Tinto Fer et Titane s facilities in Canada for onward processing into titanium dioxide feedstocks and high purity iron. Titanium dioxide reflects and scatters light like thousands of tiny mirrors, and when used as a pigment it gives brilliance and opacity to these materials. 5

8 Dampier Salt Rio Tinto, through its 68.4 per cent owned subsidiary, Dampier Salt, is the world s largest salt exporter. We produce salt at three locations in Western Australia: Dampier, Port Hedland and Lake MacLeod. The most abundant source of salt is the ocean, but it can also be produced from underground brines or from solid salt geological formations. At the Dampier and Port Hedland operations (separated by around 200 kilometres), salt is produced by evaporation of seawater, by means of energy from the sun and assisted by the wind. Seawater flows through a series of concentration ponds in which the salinity is progressively increased. When this brine is saturated with sodium chloride, it is pumped into crystallising ponds where the sodium chloride will crystallise as a pure solid deposit. The solid material is then recovered, processed and shipped to customers. It takes about 65 million tonnes of seawater to produce one million tonnes of salt. 65 million tonnes It takes about of seawater to produce one million tonnes of salt Raw salt ore sourced from Port Hedland, Dampier, Australia. 6

9 At our Lake MacLeod operation, we produce salt from underground brines that are ten times more concentrated than seawater, eliminating the need for the concentration ponds before the crystallising stage. At Lake MacLeod, we also mine gypsum. The total area under evaporation at our salt operations is 19,500 hectares, equivalent to 27,900 football fields. The three sites evaporate an average of 1.1 billion litres of water a day, enough to fill 18,000 domestic swimming pools. Rio Tinto s share of salt production by Dampier Salt is over six million tonnes a year. Our salt customers are in Asia and the Middle East. The majority are chemical companies who use salt as feedstock for the production of chlorine and caustic soda (together known as chlor-alkali production). These are used in the manufacture of many chemicals and downstream products including alumina and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Our salt products are also used as food salt and for general purposes including road de-icing. We sell gypsum to the wallboard and cement industries in Asia and Australia. Salt is used in chlorine and Polyvinyl chloride is used in umbrellas. Salt is used in chlorine, chlorine is made in the manufacture of plastic and the purification of drinking water. Salt is used to make caustic soda which is used in the nylon which makes tennis racket strings. 7

10 Our development projects Rio Tinto is evaluating opportunities to expand its mining and smelting capacity to benefit from rapid demand growth for the high quality titanium dioxide feedstock products we make. We are currently conducting prefeasibility studies to advance options to develop new mining capacity in Africa, Eastern Europe and a new smelter in Quebec. Below Lithium is used in batteries which power a range of devices such as digital cameras, calculators, remote car locks and thermometers. Lithium batteries are also used for critical devices such as artificial pacemakers. The Jadar lithium-borate project is in pre-feasibility, and is located approximately 100 kilometres from Belgrade in Serbia. If developed, the deposit will yield borates, boric acid as well as battery-grade lithium carbonate. Lithium and its compounds have several industrial applications, including heat resistant glass and ceramics and high strength alloys used in aircraft. The fastest growing application is batteries to power consumer electronics and electric automobiles. Rio Tinto have entered into a potash exploration joint venture in Saskatchewan, home to about half the world s potash reserves. About 95 per cent of global potash production is used in fertilisers to improve crop yield and quality. Rio Tinto is managing an exploration programme over the joint venture permit areas. 8

11 Above A Green boric acid flame has been set during testing in the Rio Tinto Minerals R&D lab. Major industrial minerals operations Borate operations 1 Boron Operations (mining and refining) 2 Wilmington Operations 3 (refining and shipping) Coudekerque Operations (refining) 4 Nules Operations (refining and shipping) 5 Rotterdam Operations (shipping) 6 Changshu Operations (shipping) 7 Port Klang Operations (shipping) Salt 8 Dampier (68%) 9 Lake MacLeod (68%) 10 Port Hedland (68%) Iron & Titanium 11 Rio Tinto Fer et Titane mine at Lac Tio (100%) 12 Rio Tinto Fer et Titane metallurgical complex in Sorel-Tracy (100%) 13 QIT Madagascar Minerals (80%) 14 Richards Bay Minerals (74%) Ilmenite mine project 15 Mutamba ilmenite Lithium-borate project 16 Jadar Technology centre 17 Rio Tinto Minerals Asia Key Mines and mining projects Smelters, refineries and processing plants remote from mine Technology centre Locations on the map are indicative. Operations and projects are wholly owned unless otherwise shown

12 Rio Tinto plc 2 Eastbourne Terrace London W2 6LG United Kingdom T +44 (0) Rio Tinto Limited 120 Collins Street Melbourne, Victoria 3000 Australia T +61 (0) riotinto.com Capability brochures About Rio Tinto Aluminium Copper Diamonds Energy Exploration Iron Ore Technology & Innovation 0019 V1 ENG INDUSTRIAL MINERALS FEBRUARY 2013 PDF