LONDON, June 27, 2026, 19:06 BST
- Rio Tinto closed at 7,168p on Friday, slipping 0.25% as London markets wrapped up for the week. Shares dropped about 3.1% compared to last Friday’s closing level.
- The shares are trading 21.4% under their 52-week high from May 27, and iron ore 62% futures dropped to $100.33 on June 26.
- Rio is targeting lithium capacity of 200,000 metric tons in 2028, up from this year’s planned output by roughly 3.3 times. Iron ore was still the driver last year, accounting for about 60% of the group’s earnings.
London’s market was closed Saturday, so Rio Tinto plc (LON:RIO) ended the week worse off than its slight loss Friday. Shares finished at 7,168 pence on June 26, down 18p or 0.25%, London Stock Exchange data showed. The stock is down 3.1% from £73.94 on June 19.
The bigger focus is Rio’s drop from its May top. Shares closed Friday down 21.4% from the 52-week high of 9,117p touched on May 27. But they are still up 74.4% from the 52-week low of 4,110p. The stock sits between the old iron ore payout story and a pitch for new copper and lithium growth.
Iron ore remains the main earner. Back in February, Rio said iron ore made up around 60% of total earnings, down from 70% last year, as copper’s share jumped to about 30% with earnings doubling. The miner reported underlying earnings of $10.87 billion for 2025, missing the Visible Alpha consensus of $11.03 billion.
Iron ore price is set to have a bigger effect on next week’s shares than the usual lithium chatter. Iron ore 62% futures traded at $100.33 on June 26, slipping from $100.78 on June 22 and down 8.18% over the last month, Investing.com data shows.
Rio kept its 2026 Pilbara iron ore sales forecast at 323 million to 338 million metric tons in April. First-quarter Pilbara sales were up 2.4% to 72.4 million tons. Mined copper hit 229,000 tons, compared with 210,000 tons a year ago, as Oyu Tolgoi in Mongolia added volume.
Copper is pushing Rio again, but the move is messy. Official London Metal Exchange data for June 26 shows cash copper at $13,287 a ton, with three-month copper at $13,310. On Friday, Reuters metals columnist Andy Home said copper was trading close to record levels, while treatment and refining charges for the benchmark had hit zero and spot treatment charges have been negative for several months.
Smelters under pressure may boost miners selling concentrate, but it signals stress in the supply chain from ore to refined metal. According to Reuters, CRU said the TC/RC collapse has been “painful on paper but manageable in practice” for modern smelters, but conditions are tougher for older plants with higher fixed costs. Reuters
Lithium was the more surprising number for Rio this week. Jérôme Pécresse, who runs Rio’s aluminium and lithium division, told Reuters the miner aims to turn out at least 61,000 metric tons of lithium this year and could have capacity for 200,000 tons by 2028 if the market is there. “We want to show that we can build on time and on budget,” he said. “That’s taking up 90% of my time.” Reuters
Pécresse said Rio isn’t aiming to lead the lithium sector. “It’s a market that is trying to find itself, in a way,” he said. “We have a clear roadmap to get to 200,000.” Scale is the issue for shareholders. The lithium goal signals growth, but it’s still just a fraction of Pilbara iron ore volumes. Reuters
China is still the demand story. Reuters said Saturday that China’s industrial profits were up 21.1% in May from a year ago, less than April’s 24.7% gain. Profits for January through May climbed 18.8%. Zhaopeng Xing, senior China strategist at ANZ, said “upstream sectors and the computer industry saw sharp rises, while downstream manufacturing remained under pressure.” Reuters
Rio’s next numbers are the second-quarter operations update out July 15, then half-year results on July 29. For now, the week looks set to hinge on iron ore sticking around $100, copper holding up, and whether investors still pay for the lithium story when most of the earnings come out of Pilbara.
