Overview
BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT AND MARKETS
Competitive environment
Rio Tinto is a major producer in all the metals and minerals markets in which it operates. It is generally among the top five global producers by volume. It has market shares for different commodities ranging from five per cent to 40 per cent. The competitive arena is spread across the globe.
Most of Rio Tinto’s competitors are private sector companies which are publicly quoted. Several are, like Rio Tinto, diversified in terms of commodity exposure, but others are focused on particular commodity segments. Metal and mineral markets are highly competitive, with few barriers to entry. They can be subject to price declines in real terms reflecting large productivity gains, increasing technical sophistication, better management and advances in information technology.
High quality, long life mineral resources, the basis of good financial returns, are relatively scarce. Rio Tinto’s ownership of or interest in some of the world’s largest deposits enables it to contribute to long term market growth. World production volumes are likely to grow at least in line with global economic activity. The emergence of China and eventually India as major economies requiring metals and minerals for development could mean even higher market growth.
Economic overview
The world economy grew by 5.2 per cent in 2007 on a purchasing power parity basis, marking the fifth successive year of global growth in excess of four per cent.
This extended global economic boom has inevitably not been without its stresses and strains. The implications of some of the excesses driven by previous loose monetary conditions and easy credit availability emerged last year. The full implications of the US housing downturn which started in the second half of 2005 began to be felt last year and this has led to financial market volatility and asset writedowns by some of the major banking institutions. Despite this, the manufacturing sector of the US economy performed well during 2007 and growth across the country averaged 2.2 per cent.
Growth in the rest of the developed world was reasonably supportive for the mining sector. European Union economies, which in general are not subject to same imbalances as the US, grew above their long run trend rate for the second year in a row. The Japanese economy, whilst volatile and still dependent for growth on external demand, expanded by 1.8 per cent.
The developed world accounts for around half of global metals demand but its importance to commodity markets is much less than it was as recently as the start of this decade. Changes in demand in other regions – most notably in China, but also increasingly in other emerging countries – has become much more important to the mining sector than cyclical fluctuations in consumption in the developed world.
So whilst weaker economic growth in the US, Europe and Japan acted to hold down growth in commodity demand last year, the effect of this was more than offset by accelerating economic activity elsewhere. China has been the principal driver behind this change. Its economy expanded 11.4 per cent last year and apparent copper demand in the country rose by close to 30 per cent. Aluminium demand was up a remarkable 40 per cent. Other emerging markets also achieved buoyant growth. The Asia region excluding Japan expanded by eight per cent and Latin America grew by five per cent.
Given that 2007 started with already depleted stocks, and with the mining industry still struggling to add capacity despite increased levels of capital investment, the macroeconomic conditions outlined above were more than sufficient to generate some further increases in what were already high prices at the start of the year. A number of historic price highs were breached. Slower growth and additions to supply caused some metals prices to fall back in the second half of the year, but a number of bulk and energy commodities prices continued their upwards trajectory.
Amongst the base metals, lead, tin and nickel registered the greatest increase in annual average prices in 2007 (up 82 per cent, 59 per cent and 65 per cent year on year respectively). Aluminium and copper saw more modest increases of three per cent and six per cent, respectively. Zinc was the only LME metal to return a 2007 average price lower than in 2006, following a sharp sell off through the year.
Iron ore benchmark prices increased by 9.5 per cent in April but with additions to low cost supply still not keeping pace with demand the market has become even more dependent on high cost Indian and Chinese production. As a result of this and higher freight costs, spot prices for iron ore to China doubled over the course of the year. Benchmark prices are likely to see more of the benefit of these strong market conditions in 2008.
In February 2008, Rio Tinto noted the announced settlements between another iron ore producer and steelmakers, and indicated it would continue to negotiate for a freight premium to reflect Australia’s proximity to Asia and major customers.
Australian thermal coal export prices ended the year on a high note of US$90 per tonne due to tight market conditions resulting from diminishing Chinese exports and infrastructure constraints on supply. The average annual price of US$65 per tonne was one third up on the 2006 level. In contrast, average US coal prices in the Powder River Basin were down some 20 per cent on their 2006 level, reflecting softer demand in the US. The star performer amongst energy prices was uranium, with average reported spot prices doubling year on year. Most trade in uranium takes place on longer contracted terms, and these have begun to reflect stronger market conditions.
Demand for industrial minerals such as borates and titanium minerals has held up well with prices holding steady. The same applies to the diamond market, where supply trends have been supportive of prices.
One of the beneficiaries of financial uncertainty are often precious metals prices. The average gold price rose 15 per cent in 2007 to US$691 per ounce. Most of this increase took place later in the year and gold finished 2007 selling at record levels of over US$830 per ounce, compared to a 2006 average of around US$602 per ounce.
Many less widely traded metals have also continued to benefit from firm demand. In particular, the molybdenum price continued its remarkable performance, averaging US$30 per pound in 2007, close to its record level in 2005.
Trend information
The demand for the Group’s products is closely aligned with changes in global Gross Domestic Product. Changes in the GDP of developing countries will have a greater impact on materials such as iron ore and coal that can be used to improve infrastructure, whereas changes in the GDP of developed countries will a have greater impact on industrial minerals that have many applications in consumer products. Copper is used in a wide range of applications from infrastructure to consumer electronics and demand for it has tended to grow in line with or slightly faster than global GDP. Trends in production of the Group’s minerals and metals, gross sales revenue and underlying earnings are set out in this Operating and financial report.