Rio Tinto to invest in new copper deposit in Arizona

Rio Tinto has announced an investment of $652 million (Rio Tinto's share $341 million) to support continued pre-feasibility studies on a large, tier-one copper deposit at its Resolution Copper Mining LLC (RCML) operation in Superior, Arizona.

Resolution Copper Mining (RCM) is jointly owned by Rio Tinto and rival BHP Billiton through their subsidiaries.

Rio Tinto's Resolution Copper Company, owns a 55-per cent stake in RCML and is the manager of the operation. BHP Billiton's subsidiary BHP Copper, Inc, owns the remaining 45 per cent. The project is located in the historic mining district about five kilomotres east of Superior, Arizona.

Pre-feasibility studies are expected to be completed by 2012 with production at the new mine expected to start by 2020, eventually ramping up to 500,000 tonnes per annum of copper.

Rio Tinto is a significant global copper producer with high quality assets and an interest in four of the world's ten largest undeveloped copper deposits, including Resolution. In 2007, copper was the biggest contributor to Rio Tinto with underlying earnings of $3.479 billion.

"Rio Tinto's copper operations are in the first quartile of the cost curve and we are well positioned to take advantage of strong global demand, driven by continued growth in China and other emerging economies, " said Bret Clayton,  chief executive, Rio Tinto Copper. "Resolution is an exciting prospect with an expected long mine life."