MINING

Mining lithium is expensive, environmentally destructive, and geopolitically complicated. Recycling it from old batteries is cheaper, cleaner, and keeps the supply chain domestic. The economics are obvious.

Mining is not a technology business. It is a patience business. The ore does not care about your quarterly earnings call.

We think in decades, not quarters. A copper mine takes ten years to develop and produces for fifty. That is our time horizon.

You can be profitable with low-grade ore if you control your costs. That is the entire secret.

Roy Hill is proof that Australia can compete globally if we get out of the way of the people who want to invest and build.

Mining is good for Australia. Resources are good for Australia. The sooner people understand that, the better for everyone.

We own the mineral rights. They needed our land. That's the deal. Simple as that.

Patience in mining is not just a virtue. It is a survival skill. Every world-class mine takes twenty years from discovery to full production.

The world is going to run on copper. If you want to understand the energy transition, start by understanding copper. Everything electrifies through copper.

You have to go where nobody else is willing to go. The greatest discoveries are never made in comfortable places.

I don't look for good deposits. I look for world-class deposits. There is an enormous difference, and it determines everything downstream.

Our focus is on value, not volume. We want to be the best mining company, not the biggest.

Rio Tinto is a company with a strong sense of values. When we fall short of those values, we acknowledge it, learn from it, and improve.

We were wrong to have proceeded with the destruction of the Juukan Gorge rock shelters. We are truly sorry for this and for the distress it has caused.

We want to be the most admired mining company. Not the most profitable at any cost. The most admired — which means doing it right.

We want to be the mining company the world needs to exist. Not just the one it currently tolerates.

We have to earn the right to operate. That means being welcome in communities, not just tolerated.

Being a good company and a profitable company are not mutually exclusive — and frankly, in mining today, being a good company is the only way to remain profitable.

Technology is not a nice-to-have in mining anymore. It is the only sustainable source of productivity improvement we have left.

If we don't produce the metals and minerals the world needs for the energy transition, someone else will — and probably less responsibly than we would.

Every dollar of cost reduction is permanent. Every dollar of revenue is temporary. Never forget which one you control.

You cannot manage what you don't understand. Go underground. Walk the conveyor belts. Understand what people are actually doing before you redesign it.

We made some extremely hard decisions in 2015 and 2016. But they were the right decisions. Not the comfortable ones — the right ones.

Bitcoin is a synthetic commodity that monetizes energy that would otherwise be wasted, such as stranded hydro and flared gas.