Iron Ore Prices Jump After Rio Tinto Stops Work At Africa’s Biggest Mining Project

“All activity at the SimFer mine site is currently suspended and support is in place,” the company said in a statement on Saturday. SimFer is a joint venture between the government of Guinea, Rio, and several Chinese state-owned enterprises, and it operates blocks 3 and 4 of the Simandou project.

According to a Reuters report, the most-traded January iron ore contract on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) rose 1.56% at 781.5 yuan ($109.07) a metric ton, as of 2.04 a.m. GMT. The prices were highest in over a week.

The Simandou mountain range, located in the southeast of Guinea, contains a high-grade iron ore reserve estimated at around 1.5 billion tonnes. Rio was expected to begin exporting iron ore from the project in November, following years of delay. The company did not clarify whether the exports will be delayed now.

Retail sentiment on Stocktwits about Rio was in the ‘neutral’ territory at the time of writing.

Incoming CEO Simon Trott said on Saturday he would be travelling to the mine to spend time with the team at the project. It will mark a challenging start for Trott as the chief executive for the miner, after leading the company’s highly profitable iron ore division since 2021.

The company had kept its annual production forecast unchanged in July, projected shipments between 500,000 tonnes and 1 million tonnes from Simandou.

Rio’s U.S. shares have gained 6.4% this year.