Operations & financial report
Marketing
Marketing and sales of the Group's various metal and mineral products are handled either by the specific business concerned, or in some cases are undertaken at a product group level.
Rio Tinto has numerous marketing channels, which include electronic marketplaces, with differing characteristics and pricing mechanisms depending on the nature of the commodity and markets being served. Rio Tinto's businesses contract their metal and mineral production direct with end users under both short and long term supply contracts. Long term contracts typically specify annual volume commitments and an agreed mechanism for determining prices at prevailing market prices. For example, businesses producing non ferrous metals and minerals reference their sales prices to the London Metal Exchange (LME) or other metal exchanges such as the Commodity Exchange Inc (Comex) in New York.
In 2007, Rio Tinto continued to focus on improvements in its marketing capability, with a small central marketing team based in London and Australia working collaboratively with business based sales and marketing teams to disseminate leading marketing practices across the Group. The team supports the Group's businesses by helping to identify analytical tools, approaches and strategic frameworks to help identify the value to Rio Tinto of meeting customers' needs.
