{"text":[[{"start":7.44,"text":"Miner Rio Tinto reported a 43 per cent rise in first-half underlying earnings and said it was evidence that its cost-cutting and divestment programme launched last year had started to pay off."}],[{"start":19.16,"text":"Rising commodity prices and $870mn of “productivity benefits” drove underlying earnings to $6.9bn and free cash flow up 75 per cent year on year to $3.8bn in the six months to the end of June."}],[{"start":35.24,"text":"Simon Trott, who was promoted to chief executive last year, said the “really strong” first-half performance reflected a pledge made in December to overhaul the Anglo-Australian miner’s cost base and deliver a “sharper” operational performance."}],[{"start":48.04,"text":"“Seven months on, this is the evidence,” he said on Wednesday."}],[{"start":52.84,"text":"Rio expected the savings to reach $1.8bn by the end of the year and Trott pointed to more over the longer term. “There’s substantially more to come,” he said."}],[{"start":63.32,"text":"Trott told the FT that the company’s executive committee had travelled to mine sites to extol the need for “an ongoing culture of continuous improvement”."}],[{"start":71.84,"text":"But he said his team remained “mindful” of the impact of cutting too deeply into the cost base, citing previous programmes such as the swingeing cuts to capital expenditure under chief executive Sam Walsh a decade ago."}],[{"start":84.28,"text":"Rio is one of the world’s biggest mining groups with assets across a wide range of commodities. Its earnings were driven for years by iron ore sales to China, but industrial metals such as copper have grown in importance because of their role in fields such as AI and renewable energy."}],[{"start":99.44,"text":"Copper, aluminium and lithium operations accounted for 57 per cent of its first-half earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation, while earnings from iron ore dropped 2 per cent due to issues at its Canadian business, which Trott said would take time to turn around."}],[{"start":116.8,"text":"The group has put smaller businesses such as borates and titanium up for sale while cutting costs at core operations. Trott said this ranged from better use of data and AI in developing its underground copper mine in Mongolia to improving reliability at its Australian iron ore operations."}],[{"start":133.14,"text":"The results contrast with Rio’s interim performance last year when first-half underlying earnings sank to a five-year low of $4.8bn due to weak iron ore prices and cyclones disrupting production."}],[{"start":146.64,"text":"Rio will raise its interim dividend by 43 per cent, paying out $3.4bn to shareholders. Its shares in Australia rose nearly 5 per cent on Wednesday."}],[{"start":157.32,"text":"James Redfern, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said free cash flow was “substantially stronger” than the $2.2bn expected by the market. Net debt of $14bn was 8 per cent lower than market forecasts."}],[{"start":171.72,"text":"Trott added that Rio was well exposed to booming demand for commodities from AI-related energy and data centre investments, with the miner saying so-called hyperscalers such as Meta and Alphabet were collectively forecast to spend $1tn building data centres next year."}],[{"start":187.3,"text":"“That’s a lot of copper, steel, lithium and aluminium,” he said."}],[{"start":192.36,"text":"Iron ore remained resilient even as China’s economy had matured and demand had slowed, said the chief executive. The company would continue to engage with the Beijing-backed China Mineral Resources, which acts as a central buyer for China’s state-owned steel mills, as a “normal course of business”."}],[{"start":209.72,"text":"Rio held weeks of talks over a potential combination with rival Glencore earlier this year but could not strike a deal."}],[{"start":216.68,"text":"Asked about potential consolidation of the industry, Trott said he remained “fully focused on his own business”."}],[{"start":227.48,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1785300497_1264.mp3"}