Rio Tinto Aktie

Okay. A very warm welcome to everyone both here in the room and for those of us joining us remotely. I want to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners and First Nations peoples who host our operations around the world and pay my respects to their elders, past and present.

We are pleased to be here today with our CEO, Simon; and our CFO, Peter Cunningham, to present to you our 2025 full year results and this will be followed by a Q&A session.

There are no planned fire evacuations today. So if you hear the alarm, please follow instructions from the fire wardens here at the London Stock Exchange.

With that, I'd like to ask Simon to the stage.

Good morning all to those here in London. And of course, also those joining us online. So I'll start with safety. And this evening, I'll fly to Guinea to spend some time with the team at Simandou. As you'll no doubt be aware, last Saturday, one of our colleagues died at the mine site. We've achieved a great deal at Simandou, but this tragedy underlines that we have more work to do to ensure that everyone goes home safely at the end of every shift.

Safety is the foundation of our business and nothing is more important than the people that work around us. And we must be able to safely operate in different jurisdictions around the world like Guinea. The leadership team and I are determined to learn from this tragedy, and we're taking some immediate actions. We've stopped all site works and construction activities. We started an independent investigation with both internal and external experts. And in addition, we will appoint an independent safety advisory panel. This will consist of leading safety practitioners from both industry and academia together with experience Rio Tinto Alumni. It will provide additional guidance and support to our team as we complete construction and then move Simandou into operations.

As we put in place these actions, we will reflect further on the lessons from our colleague's death. With these thoughts in mind, I'll turn now to our financial results.

We're making clear progress towards our mission of being the world's most valued metals and mining business. The results today are underpinned by a stronger, sharper and simpler way of working, which will lift productivity as well as lower cost, enabling us to cut complexity and focus on the right opportunities. Our operational performance was strong in 2025, and we delivered an industry-leading 8% equivalent increase in copper equivalent production, setting annual records for both copper and bauxite.

Our Pilbara mines rebounded strongly from the cyclones at the start of the year and set production records from April. And while volumes increased, our copper equivalent unit costs reduced by 5%. These results also show the value of diversification. Underlying EBITDA increased by 9% to $25.4 billion. The increases from both copper and aluminum were a particular highlight. Self-help was also a feature as we unlocked a $650 million run rate in annualized productivity benefits. And I'll talk more about this shortly.

Finally, the dividend. We achieved stable underlying earnings of $10.9 billion, and we will return 60% of this to shareholders equating to $6.5 billion.

Now stepping back. We've got the right assets in the right commodities and we're well positioned to deliver growth in the years ahead. Over the next decade, we expect strong growth from aluminum, lithium and copper with steel demand remaining resilient. At the same time, across the board, supply is constrained, with sector CapEx 50% lower than its 2013 peak.

Now Rio has got the people, the capability and the projects to meet this demand. And we're achieving this through operational excellence. This is driving our strong production performance, putting us on track to deliver our ambition of 3% CAGR for copper equivalent production through to the end of this decade. As part of our stronger, sharper, simpler way of working, we're also driving operational outcomes and structurally reducing costs.

We will achieve the $650 million annual run rate in productivity by the end of this quarter. And with this strong start in 2026, we will deliver cash improvements materially above this Q1 run rate in 2026. Of course, to drive the growth that creates value for our shareholders, we need to deliver on our projects safely, reliably and at scale. And in 2025, with Oyu Tolgoi, Simandou and our in-flight lithium projects, we executed some of the most technically challenging mining projects on the planet.

That underground development at OT is now complete, fully invested and the growth is ramping up. And we're on track to deliver, on average, around 500,000 tonnes of copper per year between 2028 and 2036. In December, we also achieved our first shipment of high-quality iron ore from Simandou, and we will deliver 60 million tonnes per annum of iron ore as we fully ramp up. And in lithium, we're progressing our in-flight projects, targeting capacity, 200,000 tonnes per annum by 2028.

We're delivering tangible outcomes today. And we have the project pipeline to extend growth well into the 2030s with copper at its core. That includes projects like La Granja in Peru, Resolution in Arizona, Nuevo Cobre in Chile, which I'll visit shortly. And I've asked our exploration team to narrow their scope and put copper front and center. And so we're now directing 85% of our exploration budget towards copper. But we are clear-eyed about the task. No matter how amazing the geology, this effort must translate into value-accretive projects.

And finally, capital discipline, the bedrock of strong and consistent shareholder returns. Rigorous capital allocation guides every investment decision we make. All projects must compete for capital and every dollar we invest must create shareholder value. The same standards apply to how we manage our portfolio.

As we said at Capital Markets, we will deliver $5 billion to $10 billion in cash proceeds from our asset base. And we're now actively testing the market for RTIT and the Borates businesses.

To sum up, we're achieving both returns and growth. Returning cash to shareholders and at the same time delivering the largest number of greenfield projects of any of the diversified miners, whilst retaining the industry's best growth options. That same discipline underlines how we approach any major portfolio decision.

So let me touch briefly on the discussions we had with Glencore. We went under the hood with a singular focus on whether we could create value for shareholders. We considered what we could bring to the table and the extent to which we can generate incremental value across a combined portfolio. We had constructive discussions between the two teams. Ultimately, we concluded that we could not reach an agreement that would deliver value for Rio Tinto shareholders.

Now as you might recall at Capital Markets Day, I said we would look at M&A opportunities that are disciplined lens, and that's exactly what we've done. And the same focus on value will continue to guide us.

With that, I'll hand over to Peter, who will take you through the financials in more detail.

Thanks, Simon. At our Capital Markets Day, we set out a clear pathway to increase volumes, reduce costs and release cash from our asset base, all of which will strengthen our balance sheet and drive future returns. In 2025, the improvement in our financials was largely driven by volume growth, a function of our ongoing drive towards operational excellence and higher copper volumes from OT.

Today, we are reporting nearly $3 billion of volume improvement year-on-year. Cost discipline was also good and we started to deliver substantial reductions late in 2025. These will flow into our results in 2026 and will be enhanced as we implement systemic improvements across our business. More on that later.

Our net debt increased to $14.4 billion as we absorbed the Arcadium acquisition, and falling slightly in the second half of the year due to our strong operating cash flow. The balance sheet remains in good shape, and gearing is modest at 18% with future capital release initiatives set to further strengthen our position. Once again, we're paying out 60% of our underlying earnings as dividends.

Let's now take a closer look at our markets. Now there are two key messages here. Firstly, the resilience of iron ore; and secondly, the positive correlation of our other products with the energy transition. Iron ore remains supported by Chinese steel export growth and a structurally balanced market. As Vivek outlined at our Capital Markets Day, the cost curve remains steep and is supported at the top end by over 100 price-sensitive producers from more than 20 countries.

Copper and aluminum prices both rose 9%, but average prices don't tell the whole story. Copper ended the year 44% higher than 12 months earlier; and aluminum, 17% higher. The demand growth picture is not uniformly strong. Traditional areas, such as construction, remain weak. But the backbone of growth is the energy transition, particularly around power systems and electrification. The energy transition, combined with supply constraints and reinforced by investment inflows, is driving the market strength.

Lithium also ended the year with strong momentum as markets came back into balance earlier than expected. Battery storage demand is emerging as a fast-growing pillar of the energy transition with growth now outpacing EVs as renewable scale and grid firming becomes critical. It continues to surprise many market commentators to the upside.

Turning now to our EBITDA composition over the last 2 years. Iron ore EBITDA was down 11%, but the copper and aluminum more than offset this. Our portfolio gives us the ability to allocate capital to shareholder returns and to grow with confidence, recognizing our best returns come from improving our existing assets and reducing our cost base.

At the CMD, we announced $650 million of near-term productivity benefits, driven by stronger operational discipline, a streamlined organization and a sharper focus on the portfolio. For the past few months, we've reshaped our organization, rescoped and stopped work. By the end of Q1, we will be into our next phase of the program, which is larger in scale, multiyear and steps us towards full potential.

In the Pilbara, we're looking at different ways to operate our system, focusing on contingency stockpiles and optimization of our asset shut sequencing. This will enable increased asset throughput and smarter use of spend across the mines.

For copper, we're driving productivity of underground equipment and operations in both development and production areas while improving metal recoveries in the concentrators.

In aluminum, we're focused on sharpening day-to-day operational discipline, strengthening smelter stability, improving maintenance quality and raising contractor performance to ensure operational consistency year-after-year.

And centrally, we're reorganizing our operating model to clarify accountabilities and streamline workflows. We've already redefined our closure operating model, optimizing R&D spend and are driving further improvements in sustaining capital projects.

Now we expect the value uplift to be materially more than the first phase with programs advancing in 2026, as we scale up to deliver further in 2027 and 2028.

Let's now unpack EBITDA through our standard waterfall. For the first time in many years, we experienced minimal net impact from commodity prices with lower iron ore fully compensated by higher prices for aluminum and in particular, copper. As I said earlier, the big driver of earnings growth was volumes with higher sales delivering a $2.9 billion uplift. This is mostly from copper and gold with the ramp-up of OT and improved output from Escondida.

Higher iron ore sales from the Pilbara were also an important contributor. Volumes were also a major driver of the $800 million improvement in unit costs due to fixed cost efficiencies. Now in copper equivalent unit cost terms, this represented a 5% reduction.

There were a few offsets. Kennecott is on track to deliver production increase by 40% to 50% over the next few years, as we outlined at CMD. Its operating performance is much improved, but the financials were impacted by the base effect of refining high intermediate product inventories in 2024.

Secondly, our Pilbara business recovered impressively from the four cyclones with record production rates since April. However, there was a $700 million EBITDA impact.

Looking forward to 2026, volume growth will be more muted at around 3% across our managed operations, which will be offset by closures at Arvida, Diavik and the midyear curtailment at Yarwun, and an expected grade decline at Escondida. Now nothing has changed from the parameters that we set out at the CMD.

We are pushing very hard on productivity improvements and cost reductions building on the initial $650 million already identified and secured. I would, therefore, expect the aggregate volume and cost improvements, net of headwinds, to be a material uplift on that number in 2026.

On to the product groups. Iron ore delivered $15.2 billion of EBITDA. The product strategy has been successfully introduced to the market, aligning sales to our system, and we've seen strong cost control reflected in unit costs, in line with guidance at $23.50 per tonne. For 2026, we're guiding to $23.50 to $25 per tonne, reflecting in part the impact of a stronger Australian dollar.

Copper was the standout, with EBITDA more than doubling to $7.4 billion, driven by higher prices and rising volumes. Shipments were up 60% at OT, where the underground development project is now complete. Unit costs were down 53% and 2026 guidance is comparable to 2025. Aluminum sustained its impressive record of stability, in particular, for smelting and bauxite where we set a new production record.

And we took advantage of stronger markets, leading to a step-change in financial performance with EBITDA up 20%. Now our commercial team continues to proactively optimize our vertically integrated position in the changing tariff environment. It was the first year for our new lithium business, which is clearly not yet a significant contributor, but as set out at the December deep-dive, we'll focus on delivering the in-flight projects, which will bring us to a meaningful capacity of around 200,000 tonnes by 2028.

CapEx in 2025 was at the high end of our guidance range of around $11 billion, as we hit peak spend on growth with an outlay of $1.6 billion at Simandou and just over $1 billion on lithium growth projects. Now this is a crucial period of CapEx spend, which will underpin future earnings. Our growth commitments will ease over the next few years with Simandou nearly 2/3 complete.

We do continue to strengthen our Pilbara system through replacement mine investments and also Weipa, where later this year, we will consider a final decision on the expansion of the Amrun mine. Given this context, we see no change to our guidance of up to $11 billion for the next 2 years before stepping down to $10 billion thereafter.

Turning to the balance sheet. Net debt has risen to $14.4 billion following completion of the Arcadium transaction, a level comfortably in a range consistent with our commitment to a single A credit rating. All our credit metrics are in a solid place. This remains a strong balance sheet.

We're committed to our capital framework and shareholder returns policy of paying 40% to 60% of underlying earnings. We know that distributions to shareholders are incredibly important. And once again, we're paying out at 60%, and now have a 10-year track record of paying at the top of the range.

So to summarize, we have the right assets and the right commodities. 2025 was a solid year of delivery with sustainable volume uplift. And over the next few years, our focus turns to a powerful combination of self-help and growth as we build on the productivity improvements, and we see the first results from the capital release. The balance sheet remains strong, and we're generating very stable operating cash flow from our diversified portfolio.

And with that, I'll turn it back to Simon.

Thanks, Peter. We've talked about what we're achieving and stronger, sharper, simpler is how we're doing it. It's the operating discipline that underpins the way we think about value creation across the group. Over 2026, we will focus on structurally improving the cost base and achieving a meaningful step-up in underlying performance. This work cannot succeed without our leadership team's full engagement and I'll be impressed by the way we've come together.

Peter has updated you on our program and three words on this slide: Simplify, deliver and release, reflect our priorities for the year ahead. So to sum up, returns and growth. We grew by 8% in copper equivalent terms. Our strong operating performance, combined with our focus on cost and capital discipline translates into the financial results you see today as we returned $6.5 billion to you, our shareholders. And I'm confident that there's even more to come.

Thank you for your time. And with that, we'll open up to questions.

Give me 1 minute -- 30 seconds. So we are going to open up to Q&A. We've got a bit over 30 minutes. We will start here in the room, and then we'll go to those on the line. And let's start here at the front.

Myles Allsop, UBS. Maybe start with the elephant and the Glencore talks. Maybe could you just say what you've....

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So, do you feel comfortable owning coal? That would be your first question. What do you think you've learned from the discussions? What sort of synergies did you see from that sort of combination? Obviously, the value didn't work, but any other issues that kind of stopped the deal from happening?

So you always learn through these processes. The constructive discussions, you learn, I guess, about your own business, you learn about others as well. And as I said in my presentation, we went deep, we went under the hood. We look rigorously and clinically and ultimately didn't get there on value. The discussions were for the full perimeter. And the way that we think about that is really through the lens of the underlying asset quality and whether together, in a combined portfolio, we could incrementally add value compared to the case we laid out at Capital Markets, and it's through that lens that we assess the transaction. Really comfortable with the plans that we put out at capital markets, and as you can see today, that's the full focus of the team.

And owing coal, was that ever a concern from the management team?

As I said, so it was for the full perimeter of the business, including coal and really through that lens of what's the underlying asset quality and can we add value through the combination.

Okay. Alain.

This is Alain Gabriel at Morgan Stanley. A couple of questions. One is on streaming, which appears to be quite invoked now. You have a fairly good chunky gold component at OT. Do you see an opportunity there or are the current discussions with the government around taxation, an impediment around going ahead with any streaming agreement? That's the first one.

Yes. I mean I suppose all of this comes down to the fact that we've got lots of options across our portfolio to release capital, and that's our focus. I mean, we've talked about the strategic reviews of borates and our RTIT, we're testing the market. We've got options around infrastructure. We do have options around streaming. But we're just going to work through these systematically and say what's the best option that we can undertake. So I mean, those options exist right across the portfolio, but it's all about value and what we can sensibly sort of prioritize to deliver.

And the second question is on cost cutting. You've put out a slide there, looking at the cost-cutting opportunities beyond the $650 million program. The Pilbara seems to be at the heart of it. Can you help us frame a little bit the opportunity there to quantify how much can be taken out of the business in terms of costs?

So on the $650 million, so that was a run rate that we announced at Capital Markets that we'd said we'd hit by the end of Q1. So what we're saying today is that our 2026 cash delivery will be materially above the $650 million, which was a run rate. And so that sizes it for 2026.

I think the main point here, and Pete talked about it, we've gone systematically asset-by-asset looking at full potential with clear plans then around delivery, and it will be a multiyear program. And so we've sized it for 2026, but clearly, there's more to come in '27 and '28. And I should say it's across all businesses. So yes, iron ore, but it's across each of our businesses in the portfolio.

When should we expect that?

Just on the unit cost, I mean remember guidance is $23.50 to $25, but it is at a higher exchange rate. So the exchange rate would take you up more to the midpoint of that. So the business is making pretty sizable sort of improvements because as Matt went to its CMD, there's a lot of headwinds in the Pilbara still, but we're offsetting that through productivity.

Okay. We'll go to some of the people on the line, if we could. Operator, would you mind to give the first speaker, the microphone.

[Operator Instructions]. Our first phone question comes from Paul Young of Goldman Sachs.

Simon, firstly, on Glencore. I mean, well done for sticking to your guidance of being disciplined and being focused on value. Look, I think a simple merger would have changed your strategy from one of simplification to complication. And it does appear that the true operating synergies were pretty limited. So was the main attraction the copper growth? And when Mark and the project team reviewed that pipeline, were there major differences on the CapEx and the timing?

Thanks, Paul. It was obviously -- as I said at the outset, it was for the full perimeter. And so they've got a diversified business. And so we looked across all assets, including, as you say, copper. We did go through forensically. And so I think there was really constructive engagements with the team. We obviously look deeply at their pipeline, their existing assets as they did with us, and it was that combination that we were really asking ourselves the question, can we add incremental value through the combination. And that took into account all aspects of their business and ours.

I guess if I step back and setting aside those discussions, as we've outlined in the slides today, the nice thing about the results today is we're growing now, the ramp-up at OT, 8% copper equivalent growth. And then we have the project pipeline to really extend that beyond the 3% CAGR through the 2030 -- options to extend that into the 2030s.

And clearly, copper is a particular focus, both in terms of the projects we have, but also through our exploration and other activities. And so that's a singular focus for the team. But we've got to convert what is a really good set of options into value-accretive projects.

Okay. And then second question is on the Brazil aluminum deal with CBA and Chinalco. Not much mention of this. I know the deal was only recently announced. But can you just talk to the high-level rationale? Can you expand the refinery in the smelter? What it means for your Atlantic strategy more broadly? And obviously, great for the Chinalco relationship. What does this mean for potential further deals going forward with Chinalco?

Yes. We've learned a tremendous amount through the Simandou project, obviously, working with our partners in the consortium there. And I guess taking that same mindset, we looked at that for the CBA transaction as well, an opportunity to involve ourselves in the Brazilian aluminum sector, an opportunity to add value and growth to our aluminum business and as well as the point you make, which is around securing our supply lines. And so obviously, the potential for bauxite down the track. And so that was the, I guess, the strategic rationale. And as we got into it, we could see a clear value opportunity for our aluminum business and hence, progressing that transaction.

We'll take one more from the line, please.

Next question comes from Glyn Lawcock from Barrenjoey.

It's Glyn. Just quickly, just on Glencore, again. You talked about there was a valuation gap. Just how did you measure the value? I mean, what are you actually seeing? What was -- how did you measure the gap? And what metrics do you think the gap was -- the gap emerged?

So ultimately, Glyn, it's a focus on the underlying value. So we worked our way through their full portfolio. We come to a view as to underlying value. Clearly then, there's also the synergies that you can add on to that and then what any transaction would look like. And it's -- so it's those data points that then go into a view about the potential transaction and whether it's going to be accretive to Rio Tinto shareholders. And as you would imagine, there's lots of data points that sit behind that, but that's the core principles that we looked at.

So when you say value, Simon, just to clarify, are you saying -- so when you do like a discounted cash flow, you value each individual asset and you get a sharing of the two entities. That's -- you did that much of a deep-dive bottom up under the hood and basically realized that the equity relationship 60-40, 2/3-1/3, that's -- the gap was just way too large.

Yes. So that's the core tenet of the valuation, as you articulate, Glyn. Obviously, we look at all data points as well, those in the market, what others' views are and fold that into our thinking, but that's what underpins the valuation.

Thanks, Glyn. Jason.

Jason Fairclough, Bank of America. So Simon, just to take you back to iron ore. Obviously, still a major project -- product for you. And it's kind of a funny year because you've got the change in the benchmark. We've got BHP having a bit of a dispute with the Chinese and we've got Simandou coming online, which has kind of been this thing that everyone's been talking about for a long time. So how do you see the dynamic emerging from here? Are you changing your approach to selling the iron ore to producing it even?

I think we're changing our approach the way we think about portfolio because Simandou having been something that's coming is something that's arrived. And so, as we did the work last year on product strategy, we obviously had a pretty clear view around what the future mix would look like in terms of our own portfolio. Having IOC, the Pilbara asset and Simandou obviously gives us real options across high grade, mid grade and low grade. And so thinking about how we best present those iron units to the market and also working with our customers around what their forward projection looks like.

The iron ore industry continues to mature and so working with our customers around it, about what the best mix for that is as well. As you and I have talked about before, Jason, we obviously got a long-term business, and so we've got to look beyond the sort of next few months or into what the future looks like as well for that business and make sure that we're really well positioned regardless of which way the future steel industry goes.

So just a bit of a long-term follow-up. India, how do you see the India's place in the market evolving over the next 5, 10 years?

So, I mean growth rates are really high. The central question in India is what portion of their iron ore demand is met domestically. And so we've been doing, our people work on, on looking at that and understanding it. I think inevitably, as we see those sort of growth rates, there will be periods of time when India is a really strong market for us. They do have relatively more domestic suppliers compared to, say, China through their growth phase. And so it will be a different market for us, but there will be some opportunities as well.

Ephrem Ravi from Citigroup. Two questions. Firstly, on Simandou. It seems to have a high rate of fatalities for the time period. And obviously, you haven't changed your guidance for this year. But looking forward, like do you see a risk to kind of hitting that 60 million tonnes in a reasonable period of time unless the safety culture improves quite dramatically? If not, would you consider like portfolio adjustments, i.e., potential disposals of Simandou to your partners?

So the events of the weekend are obviously incredibly sobering and the impact on colleagues, family and friends and looking forward to being on the ground there with the team tomorrow. As I said in my introduction, we've got to be able to safely operate and construct wherever in the world that is. And I think the team at Simandou have made enormous strides and the events of the weekend show we've got further to go. And so that's our real focus at the moment.

And I think the work that they have done, we know we can get there. We've just got to put in place the blocks to make sure that we really can. It is a different jurisdiction in a different environment, and we need to adjust our operating practices to that, but we're confident of the 60 million tonnes that we've announced.

And just a question on lithium. Obviously, prices have gone up 100% since the site visit about 2 months ago. And some of the peers like Pilbara is restarting operations, et cetera. So is there any change in thinking in terms of just doing your in-flight projects? Or is something more than in-flight projects going to be approved within a reasonable time frame?

I'll probably borrow the answer I was getting -- giving Jason. I mean, we've got a long-term business. And so we look through at our underlying fundamentals. And the lithium, just given the size of the industry and the rate of growth, we fully expect prices in lithium to be volatile, and we've certainly seen that over the last little while. But we've got to look through that at the long-term pricing because those assets, once we bring them into production, they are going to be in production for decades. And so it's not so much about next week, next month. It's about the years that follow.

The nice thing, and I hope you saw that for those that were on the site tour. The nice thing about that business is that it's got options. And it's got really good options in that industry. And so there's a high bar for capital allocation. Our focus is the in-flight, but clearly, there's other options in that portfolio as we look a bit longer term.

It was a well-timed side.

Brilliant.

Great. Look, we will go back to the line for two more questions. Over to you, operator, please.

Next question comes from Rahul Anand of Morgan Stanley.

I've got two questions, both on iron ore. The first one is around, I guess, your cost-out targets. Obviously, $650 million outlined at the group level and then you've got a medium-term target in 2023 for the iron ore business around that $20 a tonne mark. My question is around sort of what the targets are for your competitors in the Pilbara? And I kind of think about BHP guiding below $17.50 and they seem to be strongly guiding towards being significantly lower and then Fortescue sub-19.

Now I understand, obviously, your mine systems are quite different to theirs. But today, in terms of the next phase examples, you've talked about the Pilbara. So I guess, how can you better that $20 a tonne? And what level of betterment do you think we can expect? And sort of where can you end up in terms of where you sit versus your competitors? I'll come back with the second.

And Pete, I'll get you a comment as well. Probably the first point I'd make is you've got to look at it on apples-to-apples. And people can flip between full unit costs and C1 costs. But the numbers that you're referring to for us anyway is about full unit cost, and so got to compare the same. I think as you've seen today, we finished last year at $23.50; guidance for this year, $23.50 to $25 at a higher exchange rate, probably points to the work that Matt Holcz and the team are doing to really drive efficiencies and effectiveness in the Pilbara.

Obviously, different businesses, as you say, in terms of the particular phase of investment they are and the material that we need to move. But I think the numbers today probably point to a fair bit of the work that the team there is doing.

And Rahul, I mean, I think the key thing is that we've got all the replacement projects. We've always said they're critical to the performance of the system. So they're now being executed. That is absolutely critical to us. And I think what you saw in the 9 months of 2025 post Q2 to Q4 was just how the business could perform when it had the volume going through it. And that is, I think, critical for the future.

And at the same time, I mean, it's the same for all of our businesses. What we have done over the last 6 months is put together really clear actions to drive productivity and costs throughout our whole system. And that is what's going to underpin then real productivity improvement over the next few years. And when we talk about working through the system, and removing bottlenecks and really driving performance, it's going to be really, really driven very, very hard over the next few years to drive productivity at the same time as those new sort of replacement mines come in. That's at the heart of our -- where we will get to that $20 in '23 terms going forward.

No, absolutely, I mean, I acknowledge the business has already improved significantly in terms of, I guess, reliance and productivity, especially the last quarter.

Look, the second question is around the iron ore negotiations. Now, obviously, there's been a lot of press with BHP and the CMRG Group. I just wanted to kind of take the conversation to perhaps a wider industry question. Would I be right to kind of deduce that these types of conversations are perhaps going to happen, not just with BHP, but I guess all iron ore suppliers into China as these contracts come up for renewal? And if you've had any conversations so far, how have those conversations been? And I guess, if you have some sort of time line or something in terms of which contracts are coming due for renegotiations, I guess, in the next year or 2 years?

So we have had conversations, we're having regular conversations with CMRG and all market participants across our business, whether that's in China or in some of our other markets. And so those conversations are what I would describe as continual and ongoing.

Look, if I was to characterize them, they're exactly the sort of conversations you'd expect between us and customers. We're obviously focused on their business, securing supply prices as we are. And so it's coming together and really understanding each other's business and trying to create value together, and that's what we do with customers, that's what we're doing with CMRG. And so in that sense, it's a continuation of where we've been.

The market continues to evolve. We've obviously been talking for some time about the maturing iron ore market in China. You'll see more than 1 billion tonnes of steel in China this year again. And so it remains a large and really solid market for us as we think about folding in Simandou into the mix. And so all those things are on continual discussions with CMRG.

We'll take the second question from the line, please.

Next question comes from Rob Stein of Macquarie.

Just a couple of quick ones for me. The copper unit cost guidance you provided. Can you give us an indication is the byproduct -- magnitude of byproduct credits there? I think The Street was expecting a lower number that you might be providing a conservative estimate of byproduct credits there. And I'll follow-up with the second.

I mean, I think the gold volumes are kind of a bit higher in '26 and '25. And Rob, we've used pretty much, I think, just a bit higher than the average price of '25 in those calculations.

Okay. And then just speaking about copper and longer-term growth. I mean, your -- one of your competitors came out the other day and provided quite a comprehensive list of growth projects organically that they're pursuing that takes their growth profile out across next decade, and it's quite transformative in terms of their own portfolio. How are you guys thinking about those longer-duration copper growth options that you may have in your portfolio, noting resolution currently is still in the ground and not being mined. And I'm sure you would like to have a project there. But can you give us a bit of a flavor as to how the copper JV is going as well with Codelco and how quickly that's progressing?

Sure. So -- and I talked to, Rob, the copper pipeline in my introduction today because we do have some really good options, but we need to translate options into value-accretive projects.

I'll visit Nuevo Cobre in Chile in the next month or 2 months and our projects in the U.S. I guess the nice thing about today's results is we're growing today. And then we've got the 3% copper equivalent growth through to 2030. And so that's why we've tended to focus on the here and now because our growth is through this period.

And we have the options then to extend that growth out into the 2030s. And so we'll come to market and update as those projects commence -- progress. And in terms of Chile, as I said, I'll be there shortly. Relationship with Codelco is really good. Looking forward to seeing them next week. And so Chile, Argentina, South America, in general, remains a real focus for our copper efforts. I do think, as I talked about capital markets, partnering is a real super power for Rio Tinto and we certainly look forward to progressing those JVs with Codelco and with our other partners in that region.

So Rob, it's really nice progress now, which is what we've got in our numbers today. I mean, in the next few years is really good.

And is there anything through DD with Glencore that identified potentially opportunities for JV at a project level there?

Well, I'll probably set aside the -- if I pull it back to an industry level, as I said, partnering has delivered enormous value to this organization over time in almost all -- in all of the commodities in the portfolio. And so that's an area we are really focused on. Certainly, exploration is one way, partnering with others where we bring something to the table, project execution capabilities, operating capabilities, technical know-how, and partners bring something to the table as well. And I would just make that general comment whether that's with Glencore or with others.

Great. Thank you. Chris?

It's Chris LaFemina from Jefferies. I just want to ask about geopolitical risk profile and how that's changing at Rio? So your growth is in Mongolia, in Guinea, you consider doing a deal with Glencore who is in the DRC and Kazakhstan and Glencore is marketing businesses in many regions in the world where you guys don't operate. Rio has spent the last 5 years restoring a culture and which -- and the culture historically has been in relatively low-risk regions.

How do you think about geopolitical risk in terms of -- so I'm not only thinking about the Glencore deal, but even going forward, would you consider buying into assets in very high-risk regions where historically you might not have gone? Like would you look at a pure play DRC copper miner, for example? And what would give you comfort in going into regions where you've never been before, for example, Kazakhstan? I mean, how do you think about that? So when you're valuing Glencore in that situation, how do you -- is it a much higher discount rate that you're using? How do you get comfort around assets in those types of regions?

Look, it's an excellent question, and it's one that we spend a lot of time grappling with and thinking about it, and I'm not sure there's a perfect answer. You're right in the sense of, ultimately, it's got to come back to value. And so a higher discount rates, the way you think about the opportunity could clearly, in more challenging projects, whether they're more challenging because of the jurisdiction or more challenging because of technical aspects. The size of the prize has to be there to really step in and take on some of those challenges.

And so we have a number of different tool sets, discount rates is one, putting a high bar in terms of the returns that we expect, thinking deeply about how you could mitigate and share some of that risk might be another one. But ultimately, it's a bit hard in the hypothetical because it comes back to the opportunity and what we think about that specific opportunity, whether we take some of those risks.

But it's certainly one we spend a lot of time thinking about historically and probably for the reasons you articulate more time now given some of the changes in the world.

Tell you what, so the other point I would make just to tag on the back of that. I think in the numbers today, you can see the real value of the diversified model, and it goes a little bit to your question as well, whilst iron ore prices were down, EBITDA has gone up because of greater contribution from copper as we ramp up and obviously, a strong contribution from aluminum as well.

And so as we think about risk, as we think about some of the geopolitical tensions, clearly, having that diversified model is also helps you mitigate and manage some of that between jurisdictions.

Alan Spence from BNP Paribas. On the dividend, 10 years paying out the top end of the range. Looking forward, costs are coming out of the business, CapEx is starting to come down. There's no big M&A for now. Is it still the appropriate range? Or how do you think about recalibrating it potentially higher?

Alan, I think, very comfortable with the policy we've got. We've always said in our capital allocation framework of the priorities we'll have, investing in the existing business, the sort of ordinary shareholder returns policy and then looking at growth, the balance sheet and returns. If we have excess capital, we will look to sort of return more to shareholders. That framework is still absolutely applicable as to how we think about that right now.

If I can push back a little bit. What's the point of having the low end of the range of 40%, if over the last 10 years, not every year has been an easy year, but you've never paid 40%.

Well, I mean, I think I'd sort of push back as well and say that the business has kind of performed at a level to have the 60% payout range. I mean, that's what we've had. I think that's sort of just reflective of the cash flows, quality of assets. And the reality is now we're growing the business. That pie will grow. And so the absolute number in line with the growth of the earnings would increase as well. I think that's a pretty good place to be. It's growth and its returns.

So a minimum 60%?

All I'd say is our policy.

Okay. We've got one more on the line. Please?

Next question comes from Ian Rossouw of Barclays.

Just a follow-up on the Glencore sort of discussions. Yesterday at the Glencore presentation, Gary talked about sort of meaningful potential synergies on sort of overhead, procurement cost savings, line optimization on the marketing side. And I guess he was referring to the point that not a lot of the synergies would have come from sort of operational synergies with mining next to each other as we've seen with some of the other mergers in the industry. I mean, that all suggests that the synergies potential between Rio and Glencore could have been much bigger than what the market was estimating. Just wanted to hear your views on that.

So there were synergies -- and I'll probably go back to what I said. I think the discussions with Gary and the team were constructive and the teams work well together, looking at and really thinking about what those synergies could be. But it's one data point that falls into the valuation and there are many others. And so there was synergies, it's only one data point, though, as well.

And the other point I would say is you've got to look at it rigorously compared to the base case, which is what we laid out at Capital Markets Day and what you can do and what you can do yourself. And so it's got to be a really robust methodology of truly value that you can only derive from the combination rather than the value you can chase through other means.

And then maybe a follow-up in sort of on the back of Myles was asking about sort of learnings from this process. I mean, would you approach the marketing side slightly differently within the Pilbara or other parts of the business?

Again, if I lift it up to a more general industry statement, I think that marketing front end is something that we are spending quite a bit of time thinking about. We, obviously, established commercial a few years ago, a little bit to the question that was made before in terms of geopolitical tensions and volatility in the world. I think, around our physical flows there are ways we can generate greater value around those flows. And certainly, that's top of mind for Bold and the commercial team.

Okay. I think we have time for one more. So, Liam?

Liam Fitzpatrick from Deutsche Bank. I'll just ask one. On Chinalco. There was talk last year from you and your predecessor about discussions over the stake in Rio plc. Has that gone anywhere? Are discussions live? Any color you can give.

Continue to engage with Chinalco. Nothing to announce today, obviously. But the relationship is in a good place. Obviously, the CBA deal is with Chinalco as well, and so we're continuing to engage.

It's Matt Greene at Goldman Sachs. Simon, if I could just come back to Glencore, we talk a lot about valuation today and you touched on discount risk profile. What about where you could see value tomorrow and where -- more importantly, where the market will value your company tomorrow? So in terms of a potential re-rate either being a combined entity being a leader in all these commodities or potential future simplification of demerge got, how much weighting was put on in terms of your view on valuation? How much emphasis did you put on that?

So valuation by its very definition is forward-looking. And so it completely flowed into our view of value. But strategic rationales don't pay the grocery bills. It's got to come back to cash accretion for Rio shareholders, and that's the lens we talk.

Okay. Any last question? We're good. Ben?

Ben Davis, RBC. Just a question on the mineral sands. Obviously, you've got these asset sales that you're looking at and you're not forced sellers. I'm just wondering if there's anything sort of -- clearly, the cycle is not great in mineral sands. So just curious what sort of minimum valuation you'd be looking for these type of assets? And how surely wouldn't be a better time to wait for another 3 years for it to start again?

We're going to do it patiently, yes. As I've said earlier, we are a long-term business. And similarly, I think the people that are interested in that or the borates business is going to look through the market as it stands. But we're going to be patient, as you say, we're not under any pressure. And so if we don't get the sort of value that we see in the business, we won't progress them. But anything to add?

No, I think that's exactly right.

And then just quickly on Yarwun, how much are we looking at care and maintenance costs? And again, what's the longer-term plan for that asset, which is sitting there?

We're currently moving that as we announced low single digits, I would say, in terms of spend.

Okay. Many, many thanks for joining us today. For those online, we will conclude our time now. And for those here in London, I welcome you to join us for a light refreshment before, for the analysts here, we move into an analyst roundtable. So thank you again.

And with that, I conclude today's presentation. Thank you.

Fantastic. Good morning, everyone, and a warm welcome to Rio Tinto's Capital Market Day. It's fantastic to see so many of you here with us in London and equally great to have so many joining from around the world. We really appreciate you taking your time today to be part of today's conversation.

But before we get underway, a quick safety note for those with us in the room. In the unlikely event of an emergency, you will hear an alarm, and our venue team will guide you to the nearest exits, but they are here and here. If we do need to evacuate, please follow the IET fire wardens' instructions, they will be wearing visible jackets, and head calmly to the assembly point outside Somerset House, Victoria Embankment Street underneath Waterloo Bridge.

Finally, please note that today's remarks, including forward-looking statements, so our cautionary statement applies.

Thank you again for being with us, whether in person or virtually. So let's get started.

Well, good morning, and good evening to those online, and welcome to the 2025 Capital Markets Day, and it's fantastic to see so many of you here in the room and of course, online as well. Now throughout my career, I've had the benefit of spending time with First Nations people across our business, and I'd like to acknowledge and pay my respects to traditional owners and First Nations people wherever we operate.

Over my 26 years with Rio Tinto, I've seen the positive impact we have on the communities that host us. I've seen the way our products improve people's lives and how our industry creates economic growth and prosperity. That same sense of purpose has guided me throughout my career. And over the years, I've done everything from fly-in, fly-out roles in operations, sales and marketing and leading M&A transactions. And most recently, of course, I was Chief Executive of our iron ore business.

I know this industry, and I know Rio, and my beliefs are shaped by these experiences. And for me, a great metals and mining business starts with a few core ingredients: operational excellence, to keep people safe and drive returns, project execution and capital discipline, all combined with a strong social license. Now when these fundamentals are in place, our resource business is at its best. And when Rio Tinto is at its best, it's extraordinary. And I saw this a few weeks ago at Oyu Tolgoi and Simandou, 2 of the most remarkable mining projects anywhere in the world.

And today, we start a new era for this business where we build on these strong foundations, deliver leading returns, to become the most valued metals and mining business. This morning, with my leadership team, we'll set out how we're going to get there.

But before I start that, I want to start with safety. In my first few weeks as Chief Executive, I traveled to Guinea to meet the family of our colleague, Mohamed Camara, who lost his life at Simandou. Mohamed was a husband, a father and a valued member of his community. I often get asked why I'm obsessed about safety, sitting with Mohamed's family and hearing their grief was something I'll never forget. Safety must be our foundation, and safe and respectful workplaces are nonnegotiable. More broadly, a safe business is also a strong business. It connects us. It drives a culture of collaboration. This is why safety will always sit at the heart of everything we do.

Let's move to today's presentation and how we're positioning Rio to become the most valued metals and mining business. You'll hear from me, from Peter, our CFO; and Vivek, the Chief Economist. And then the 3 product group leaders, Matt, Jerome and Katie, will each in turn, discuss how we're driving value from their areas. But I'll start by setting the scene.

I'm excited to lead this business because Rio has enormous potential. And as a leadership team, we've asked ourselves, how do we become stronger, sharper and simpler and unlock that full potential even faster. It starts, of course, with having the right assets in the right markets, supported by a diversified model that delivers market-leading performance and returns. It's a strategy focused on 3 pillars, and each one reflects the crucial ingredients of a mining business and resource business I talked about earlier.

First, operational excellence. This is about building a business that puts safety first and stays focused on the fundamentals. It means putting our unique strengths to work, especially deep ore body knowledge, mining and process. And it means continually finding new ways to drive productivity, building, of course, on the progress we've already made with a safe production system.

Second, project execution. To grow, we need to deliver projects reliably, safely and at scale. And that's why great project execution is so crucial. It allows us to create value from our organic growth options, and we have been at the project model for some time, and I'll talk a little bit later about some of the benefits we're really starting to see flow through.

This leads me to our third pillar, capital discipline. Strong performance requires firm financial foundations. That starts with a resilient balance sheet, rigorous capital allocation and a very clear focus on delivering leading returns to shareholders.

None of this is possible without fostering those core enablers, our people who are brilliant, talented and expert in what they do and our strong social license, particularly crucial for our business, where the majority of our returns are generated by large, long-life assets that we will operate for decades and partnerships, something that is increasingly a superpower for Rio Tinto as we work together with customers and other industry stakeholders.

We've started translating this strategy into action by streamlining our portfolio to focus on 4 commodities: iron ore, aluminum, lithium and copper, all of which are suited to our competitive advantages and our asset base. Our product group leaders will delve into where the opportunities lie, but I'll give you a sense of why these are the right markets for us to invest in.

Turning first to iron ore, where we have the best assets in the industry. We expect demand to stay strong with tight supply and significant depletion continuing to shape the market fundamentals. Next, our world-class aluminum and bauxite assets, with strong demand from the energy transition and lower supply growth from China, driving up marginal costs and, of course, prices. Lithium, fast-growing market, vital for electrification. Following the Arcadium acquisition, we have world-class options to grow at the bottom of the cost curve, and Jerome will talk about this shortly. Finally, copper. We're seeing extremely strong demand combined with constrained supply. So our message today is clear. We have the right assets in the right commodities, and we will grow in a capital disciplined way.

This brings me to our commitment to deliver 3% compound annual growth rate through to 2030 with the project options to extend that into the following decade. This is industry-leading growth, delivered with discipline and rigorous capital allocation as our guiding principle. In practice, this means our projects compete with capital with a decision-making framework to deliver those exceptional returns. It also means we'll maintain a strong balance sheet.

Next, meet the executive team who will drive this strategy forward, and welcome to Matt Holcz, the newest member of ExCo leading our iron ore business. Now you may notice that there's fewer faces on this slide. I wanted a smaller and more accountable ExCo group, and we reduced its size by 20%. That's because in my mind, greater simplicity and accountability equates to faster and better decision-making.

So what sets this team apart? For me, it's the depth and diversity of experience around the table, 2 centuries of combined experience in extractive industries, together with decades across other sectors. And when you put this together, you get something special, a balance of different perspectives, combined with deep operational experience.

Now we all recognize when you try and do everything, you get nothing done. So we're directing our energy to where we can move the dial and taking immediate action on 3 areas for our shareholders: one, to simplify and sharpen our focus on performance; two, to deliver and ramp up our growth projects, Simandou, OT and Rincon; and finally, to release up to $10 billion in cash from our asset base. All of this is about creating a stronger business.

Firstly, let's talk about how we're simplifying the business. We've streamlined the organization, and we've moved to 3 product groups, supported by a diversified model that brings together long-life, low-cost assets and a strong commercial front end. Reduced complexity translates into a sharper focus. By moving decisions to our assets as close as possible to the point of impact, we'll achieve greater accountability and sustainable improvements in productivity and cost savings, and we're already seeing results. In our first 3 months, we've taken action to deliver $650 million in cash from the business on an annual run rate basis. Half of that is banked and just under half will be banked over the following few months. And we're targeting significantly more, and I'll update you as we deliver.

Our growth projects are our second area of focus. And in Q4, we completed the OT underground project, one of the most technically challenging we've ever undertaken, 200 kilometers of lateral development. Katie will be speaking more about this incredible work a little later.

And last month, I was in Guinea to mark first ore at Simandou, which we achieved just over a year after major construction began. The rail spur was commissioned 5 months ahead of plan, and we're on track to deliver the mine and port on or ahead of schedule. This is an extraordinary outcome given the development scale and complexity. And I want to recognize Bold and Mark for their leadership and enormous contributions. Our experience at Simandou was a game changer, and it's created a new model of partnership for our business. Collaborating with our Chinese construction partners has brought speed, efficiency and scalability.

As a result, we're doing things differently. Instead of starting from scratch, we're using a category engineering infrastructure design. And we're uniquely positioned to apply those learnings across other parts of our portfolio as we drive lower capital intensity and speed up our projects. Let me give you an example. After pivoting to a Chinese EPC delivery model at a project in our mineral sands business, we've been able to reduce capital costs by 25%. We've accelerated our schedule by 9 months, and we expect a 10% increase in processing throughput.

I'll turn now to our third area of focus, our plan to release up to $10 billion of cash from our asset base. Now 2 principles guide us. Firstly, being disciplined with our capital allocation. Secondly, innovating to capture our assets' full potential. Our strategic reviews of RTIT and Borates are advancing as planned with the next phase focused on testing the market for those assets.

We will also look at opportunistically releasing cash from our asset base where we can get a competitive cost of capital. And as part of that approach, we're exploring commercial partnerships and ownership options across land, infrastructure as well as our mining and processing assets. There are times when we need access to infrastructure, but we don't need to own it. All this together will drive increased return on capital as we invest in the growth and replacement projects we've announced earlier.

Of course, none of our plans for growth and for delivery could happen without the trust and support of the communities and the countries that host us. But we need to earn that trust and be their partner of choice. Strong community relationships and social license come from listening carefully, engaging early and focusing on outcomes. Our commitment to sustainability is also an example of the way we live these partnership values. We remain focused on decarbonizing our business, and we have a pathway to 50% emissions reduction target by 2030. As always, achieving this target is dependent on addressing our largest emitting assets, Pacific Aluminum in Australia. And Peter will talk more about how we're decarbonizing our operations in a financially disciplined way.

So to wrap up, as we enter this new era for Rio Tinto, we've taken some significant steps forward. And 3 words: simplify, deliver and release speak to what we've achieved in the first few months. So today, we announced $650 million in productivity benefits and savings as we simplify the business, and we're targeting significantly more. We are delivering our major growth projects, Simandou, OT and Rincon with 3% CAGR to 2030. And we're focused on capital discipline with a commitment to release $5 billion to $10 billion in cash proceeds. And behind all this progress are our people, our social license and our skills at developing partnerships.

So the message I want you to take away from today is that there is plenty more to come. For you, our investors, that will mean leading returns. For the communities where we operate, it will mean lasting positive impact. And for Rio Tinto and our employees, it will mean becoming the most valued metals and mining business.

And now Peter, over to you.

Thanks, Simon. Let me build on your introduction by putting some numbers around the group for the next few years. We have a clear pathway, to increase volumes, reduce costs, further strengthen our balance sheet and release cash from our asset base, all of which will drive returns.

This year, we are reconfirming that our production will grow at over 3% CAGR for the rest of this decade. Now that equates to 20% growth to 2030 and is underpinned by committed projects such as OT and Simandou. So the growth is locked in and coming. Delivery in 2025 has been strong with production growth at 7%. Now OT has been the main driver, but it's been a good year across the portfolio. Next year will be relatively flat before picking up again as we scale up Simandou and deliver higher lithium volumes. Post 2030, we have multiple options to extend our growth, particularly in copper and lithium, but that will depend on locking down the economics and capital intensity.

Capital discipline is key. We have a strong pipeline, and we'll only advance the best projects. And our mission here is to be, as Simon said, the most valued metals and mining company, and that means strengthening our margins. We don't control price, but productivity and efficiencies will drive down unit costs and allow us to increase volumes.

Now this chart shows the competitiveness of our business. Through cost discipline, efficiencies and uplift in our volumes, our cost per copper equivalent unit shows a 4% annual reduction, equating again to 20% reduction by 2030. Taking out fixed costs is an absolute priority. As Simon said, we have already reduced the annualized run rate by $650 million and have real momentum going into 2026.

Now let me give you some more detail. We've acted quickly to reset the organization and cost base with 3 main focus areas. First, simplification. We now have 3 product groups instead of 4 and have reduced the Executive Committee on one level below by 20%. We're bringing down the size of the center, making it leaner and devolving accountability to the assets. By year-end, we will have $200 million of annualized savings, which will be augmented over time by the benefits of streamlined decision-making closer to the assets.

Second, we're continuing deployment of SPS practices to remove waste and strengthen operational discipline. We're driving efficiencies through labor productivity, contractor management, raw material sourcing and reducing central spend. We're also changing how we invest in digital solutions. And this in aggregate is releasing $300 million. In parallel, we have accelerated the next phase of our SPS productivity uplift by challenging the medium-term plans of each of our businesses and functions to ensure they are aligned with their full potential on output, costs and productivity. Now this has been a very detailed process to test operating assumptions around volumes and cost and to eliminate work that is not on the critical path to value creation.

And third, we've looked hard at our portfolio of early-stage projects and reduced $150 million of spend where we don't currently see a compelling pathway to create value. Hence, the decision to put Jadar into care and maintenance. We have a strong portfolio of development options, and we'll be highly disciplined in allocating capital to them.

Now we do face some cost headwinds, particularly in the Pilbara, so some savings will be offset, and Matt will cover this in some more detail. Also, some costs in our business are nonnegotiable, such as the hard one gains we've made in asset integrity and maintenance. But on a net basis, we are now firmly on a reducing cost trend and with much more to come.

So we have a well-defined pathway to a 20% increase in copper equivalent production by 2030. These additional tonnes, together with productivity gains from operational excellence and cost discipline will lift EBITDA by as much as 40% to 50% at long-term consensus pricing. At the same time, we will see increased diversification in our earnings with a growing contribution from copper, aluminum and lithium.

Turning to capital expenditure. 2025 to 2027 are peak years as we complete OT, Simandou and Rincon and execute replacement projects in the Pilbara and Amrun. Post completion, we expect CapEx to decline to less than $10 billion. Now the shape of our capital spend remains consistent with prior guidance with around $4 billion for sustaining, $3 billion for replacement projects and $3 billion for growth. Growth is pretty much committed for the next 2 years, but capacity opens up from 2028. We have very good options across the portfolio, particularly copper and lithium, which will compete for capital. And as Simon said, lowering capital intensity is an absolute priority. We have industry-leading capabilities in project delivery and our strong partnership with Chinese contracting firms and their project ecosystems is starting to pay real dividends.

Lastly, let me touch on decarbonization. We have a pathway to our 2030 target of a 50% reduction, which is achieved by leveraging third-party investment. We estimate we will underwrite $9 billion of private renewable energy investment on competitive commercial terms by 2030. Now this, together with some rephasing of spend on new emission reduction technologies, has lowered our decarbonization capital estimate to $1 billion to $2 billion.

Let's now take a look at the balance sheet. As I have said consistently, we have chosen not to have a net debt target, but have adopted a principles-based approach around a single A credit rating. Net debt increased to $14.6 billion at the half year following the Arcadium acquisition. Now that's still a comfortable level, but we will be looking to further strengthen the balance sheet over the next few years. As Simon said, we will release cash of $5 billion to $10 billion from our asset base on an opportunistic value-accretive basis. We're in active discussions on one particular infrastructure asset, which could release up to $0.5 billion. We remain committed to our capital framework, including our returns policy of paying 40% to 60% of underlying earnings, noting we have a 9-year record of paying at the top of this range.

So to conclude, business performance is improving, and we will drive value through financial discipline, productivity and growth. Unit costs are coming down as we take costs out of the business. Volumes are increasing as we deliver in-flight projects. We will be disciplined on capital spend. We expect return on capital to lift from 2026 as volumes grow, cost decline and capital expenditure reverts to sub-$10 billion a year from 2028. And finally, we remain committed to industry-leading shareholder returns across the cycle.

With that, let me hand over to Vivek to talk more about our markets.

Thanks very much, Peter, and good evening, everyone, and good morning, I guess, for you. Today, I will talk about the forces shaping our markets over the medium to long term, what's happening on the demand side, what's happening to supply and what all of that means for our commodities. With demand, 2 big themes stand out for me: economic development in emerging markets and the energy transition.

So let's start with economic development. The chart on the left shows global income distribution. Historically, metals demand in the region picks up when per person income is into the $5,000 to $20,000 range. That's when urbanization and industrialization accelerate. The rapid expansion of this income group during China's boom and our granular insight into commodity intensities informed our early prediction of China's billion tonnes of steel. Looking to the future, growth in India and ASEAN will expand this same key income group, creating another wave of building construction and infrastructure-led metals demand even as China becomes richer and slows.

Moving to the energy transition. Electrification of the global economy will drive substantial commodity demand. Electricity is replacing fossil fuels, for example, in transport as EV adoption continues at pace and new electricity demand is coming from fast emerging applications such as data centers. At the same time, renewables are scaling quickly, driven by climate policy and falling costs. Put all of those together, and global electricity use could rise by nearly 4% a year, requiring significant new infrastructure and therefore, substantial metals demand.

Turning to the supply side. The industry now operates under 2 defining constraints. First, scrap has not delivered. Many analysts had expected recycled metal supply to grow quickly and therefore, reduce the need for primary supply. But slower product life cycles and demolition rates mean scrap availability across steel, copper and aluminum has been lower than predicted. This has meant additional requirements for mined ores and primary metals. Scrap use will expand more rapidly in the future because that is the direction of government policy, but we need to recognize the limits.

The second constraint is that new projects are taking longer. This is due to deeper ore bodies requiring more complex engineering, higher environmental and social standards and increasingly complex approval processes. All of that slows supply growth and pushes costs higher.

So let me step back for a minute and consider the big picture so far. We have economic development, the energy transition and expansion of the digital economy continuing to drive demand across our portfolio. On the supply side, scrap availability, longer project time lines and higher costs reinforce industry structure. So what stands out to me is the diverse range of positive forces affecting the markets for our commodities. So let's explore all of this in more detail for aluminum, lithium and iron ore and copper, obviously.

Turning first to aluminum. Global demand is expected to grow by around 2% a year, supported by the energy transition globally and construction, especially in the global South. Aluminum benefits from positive substitution, thanks to its lightweight and conductivity. But the strongest structural tailwind blows from the supply side. For over 15 years, China has dominated global aluminum supply growth due to its low smelter construction costs and speed to market. But that era is ending. With China now near its 45 million tonne production cap, the next wave of supply must come from outside China, primarily emerging markets across the global South. Projects in these regions have been more capital-intensive and slower to deliver. This creates supply risks as the market diversifies beyond China.

And while these challenges play out, cost pressures are also building. In particular, electricity costs are rising due to decarbonization, grid reforms and competing demands from other sectors. This will tend to steepen the aluminum operating cost curve. Finally, trade measures add a layer of upside to regional prices, leading to a fragmentation of market outcomes. For example, Europe's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, or CBAM, which is due next year, will mark a step change in premiums that will favor low-carbon aluminum producers.

Together, these supply side constraints and cost pressures underpin robust long-term support for the aluminum industry, especially for those producers toward the bottom of the cost curve and with access to low carbon power.

Lithium sits at the heart of the energy transition. The largest source of demand is, of course, electric vehicles where global growth remains rapid, driven by falling battery costs and still supportive policies. But more recently, stationary energy storage has overtaken EVs as the fastest-growing source of lithium demand with broad-based expansion in all parts of the world. An underappreciated source of demand is supply chain stocks. Ongoing industry growth requires very well-stocked inventories throughout the supply chain, and that's to hedge against shortages. These inventories themselves need to grow over time to keep pace with the market.

Meeting all of this demand growth requires rapid supply expansion. This year, that challenge has been met largely by hard rock lithium from Africa and China. Hard rock has been quick to the market, but it also has higher operating costs than lithium from brines. Looking ahead, significant additional supply will need to be incentivized to meet the demand that's coming likely, including from the upper half of the project cost curve.

But with strong growth in both lithium demand and lithium supply, there's uncertainty around the evolution of market balances over time. So in this context, we continue to monitor closely the relative pace of the energy transition versus supply developments.

Copper has a very attractive industry structure. Over 40% of future demand growth will come from the energy transition. So that's electric vehicles, renewable power and grid infrastructure. Data centers also require significant copper for cooling and cabling. Even relatively conservative estimates suggest that this segment could add over 1 million tonnes of demand in the next decade.

On the supply side, the challenge is clear. By 2035, the industry needs millions of tonnes of new mine supply to meet demand plus additional volumes to offset grade decline in closures. While at 16 million tonnes, the project pipeline looks large on paper, history shows that only a fraction of this will be developed once technical, environmental and social hurdles are considered. It's very hard work. This means that balancing the market will require 3 additional strategies: mine lives will need to be extended, new projects will need to be brought into the pipeline through exploration and new technologies will be needed to increase the productivity of existing ore bodies.

Finally, I'll turn to iron ore. This is a market where prices have been significantly higher than forecast by most analysts. And there are 5 key reasons for the miss. First, forecasters have underestimated the scale and frequency of disruptions to supply. Second, rates of depletion have been underestimated. Third, the extent of grade decline and therefore, reduced availability of iron units was not projected. Fourth, and building on one of my earlier points, the availability of steel scrap has been overstated. And finally, the resilience of Chinese steel production and therefore, iron ore demand has been under forecast. Together, these factors have led to a structurally tight market with a steep cost curve dominated at the top end by over 100 small price-sensitive producers from over 20 countries.

Looking to the coming decade, we expect substantial demand growth from the global South, especially from India and ASEAN. This will offset the expected decline in Chinese demand. The market will need around 950 million tonnes of new capacity to meet this demand, to manage regular disruptions and more importantly, to offset around 800 million tonnes of depletion at existing mines, a point that Matt will pick up on in a moment.

To illustrate the magnitude of this supply growth challenge, only just over 300 million tonnes have been committed to date, including Simandou, and achieving further supply growth will need to take place in the context of lengthening mine development time frames. This underscores the continuing strong industry fundamentals for iron ore.

So wrapping up, the key picture I would like you to take away from my presentation is that our commodity portfolio benefits from exposure to the full range of diverse structural forces shaping commodity markets.

And on that note, I'll hand over to Matt.

Perfect. Thank you, Vivek, and good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here today. I've been in role for 3 months, and I'm immensely proud to be representing our iron ore business.

By way of introduction, I joined Rio Tinto in 2007, and I've worked in the mining industry for over 2 decades across commodities, including iron ore, copper and nickel. I've covered business development, commercial, major projects and operational roles in geographies, including Australia, South America and the U.K. I've stepped into this role, having been the Managing Director of our Pilbara mines for the last 4.5 years. It's an exciting time to take leadership of the iron ore business. We have a significant opportunity ahead of us. This is grounded in 2 core principles. The first is the strong fundamentals of the iron ore industry. The second is that we have a global portfolio with unmatched scale and superior optionality.

We aspire to be the most valued iron ore business. To achieve this, there are 3 things that really matter. First, we must ensure a safe and sustainable business where people go home safely and where communities and partners value our contribution. Secondly, performance. Simply, this is getting the very best out of our assets. And finally, disciplined capital allocation, meaning we select the right investment options and deliver attractive financial returns.

We have strong conviction in the industry fundamentals, and I'd like to build on 2 points that Vivek made. The first point is that we expect the volume of new supply required over the next decade to be around 800 million tonnes, unchanged from the past decade. Rather than meeting rising demand, the driver for new supply has shifted to offsetting growing depletion. The second point is that the sector has under-invested at a time when developing new projects is more challenging than ever. This provides significant opportunity for those that can bring quality new supply to market.

This brings me to the second core conviction, the unmatched scale and superior optionality of our global portfolio. The Pilbara with IOC and soon Simandou altogether form the world's largest iron ore producer under one leadership team. This brings opportunities. One is a greater focus on core technical disciplines and applying leading practice. At IOC, we are currently facing substantial challenges with pit health and asset reliability. There is expertise we can leverage from the Pilbara.

Another opportunity is partnerships. Our joint venture partners bring diverse expertise from construction and steelmaking to trading and financing. Then there's market reach, with exposure to both the key Atlantic and Pacific markets, we will be the largest supplier of both high-grade fines and mid-grade lump and fines. This gives us deep insight into the market and a better understanding of customer needs.

Beyond our committed replacement mines, our Pilbara business retains significant optionality. We have choices on overall mine volumes and the rate at which we expand. Our rail and port infrastructure already has surplus capacity, significantly reducing the capital required to uplift volume.

Secondly, we have choices around product quality, including how we blend our ores. The Pilbara product strategy implemented earlier this year is a great example. The strategy allows us to better utilize our ore bodies, bringing in 2 billion tonnes of resources into our mining schedule. This means after Rhodes Ridge, we delay the need for new mines. We defer closures, and we run a simpler business. Simandou further strengthens our product strategy options. As you can see in the graph, the sheer size and quality of Simandou will increase our average grades at a time when the overall industry grades are declining.

Having good options is not enough. We need to execute the right options at the right time to maximize returns. In the Pilbara, our replacement mines will replenish 130 million tonnes of capacity. Western Range was delivered on time and on budget earlier this year. The next tranche of projects will sustain the Hope Downs, West Angelas and Brockman 4 hubs. All projects are on track to deliver first ore over the next few years. For Nammuldi, we have optimized the schedule and scope with a pathway to first ore in 2028. These are all highly attractive, low capital brownfield investments that leverage our existing infrastructure and generate internal rates of return of between 30% and 70%.

At the same time, we are also pursuing opportunities to monetize our existing infrastructure. At IOC, we now generate revenue from railing 25 million tonnes of third-party ore. At Hope Downs, at our joint venture, we have reached an agreement to access an additional 400 million tonnes of resource. With infrastructure already in place, capital will be minimal.

Beyond these options, we also have the 2 best undeveloped iron ore deposits in Simandou and Rhodes Ridge. Simandou, I will cover shortly. Rhodes Ridge will complete the pre-feasibility stage by year-end, with first ore in 2030. We are targeting 40 million to 50 million tonnes with options to increase beyond that.

Last month, Simandou celebrated first ore. Seeing the project in person really put into perspective the enormity of what has been achieved. It was a moment of deep reflection as we remembered the 2 fatalities on our scope. It was also a moment to recognize the years of dedication that went into reaching first ore, and I do want to pay tribute to my colleagues, Mark and Bold and their teams. Building strong partnerships with the Government of Guinea, our industrial partners and local communities has been essential.

While the first ore shipment departed this week, there is still a lot of work ahead of us. Construction activities on our scope are 60% complete with major work still required across the mine, rail and port. Sales are expected to be 5 million to 10 million tonnes next year. Once full commissioning is complete, we expect a 30-month ramp-up to full production.

Turning to the near term. The biggest value driver is operational performance. Our Pilbara operations were impacted by 4 cyclones in the first quarter. The production impact was around 13 million tonnes. We challenged ourselves to recover half of that loss. Since these events, our Pilbara operations have bounced back and are achieving record rates. With constraints in the ports for most of half 1, strong mine performance created a surplus stock position, allowing the system to run for a period at full capacity.

We've also focused on costs, with $100 million removed since September to offset cyclone impacts. With the system running at 360 million tonnes per annum, combined with these savings, we have demonstrated our operating costs drop below $22 per tonne, aligned with our midterm guidance. This shows the value of delivering the replacement mines and Rhodes Ridge so that we can sustain higher volumes and achieve lower unit costs.

In the meantime, we will continue a relentless focus on productivity. Beyond the ongoing focus at site level, we are targeting 3 levers at the system level: increasing ore body efficiency, unlocking system flow and simplifying our organization and processes. There is a clear opportunity to do more with less. Next year, productivity will offset depletion-related headwinds, meaning cost guidance will be similar to this year, adjusted for inflation and FX.

I'm going to end on safety and sustainability. Our most valuable asset are our people. Nothing is more important than making sure they go home safe. While we have seen an improvement in key safety metrics, our safety journey is never complete.

Partnership with our host communities is also essential. In the Pilbara, we signed a co-management agreement with the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura peoples earlier this year. In the last week, we have also signed updated agreements with the Nyiyaparli people and the Yinhawangka people. While these milestones represent considerable progress, challenges remain, and we continue to engage to resolve these.

We're also reducing our impact. In the Pilbara, we will disturb less land, return more waste to pits and decrease our surface water discharge. This also reduces our operating and closure costs. At Simandou, we have worked alongside local stakeholders to minimize impacts, including redesigning the mine, realigning the infrastructure to avoid critical habitats. This is about mining being done in the right way.

Next year, global sales guidance is 343 million to 366 million tonnes on a 100% basis. This includes 323 million to 338 million tonnes for the Pilbara. In the midterm, our capacity is 425 million to 440 million tonnes.

In closing, going back to core convictions, we have the right assets in the right industry, a global portfolio with unmatched scale and superior optionality for both volume and grade. We will become the most valued iron ore business by allocating our capital with discipline and a relentless focus on safety, sustainability and performance.

Thank you. I'd like to introduce my colleague, Jerome.

Thank you, Matt. Good morning, good evening to you all. I'm Jerome Pecresse, and I'm very happy to be here today to present to you the aluminum and lithium businesses and the work of our teams.

In aluminum, I started the journey more than 2 years ago. As you will see, in 2025, we crossed important steps both in Atlantic and Pacific. We faced unique market volatility, but we performed nevertheless. At Rio Tinto, we have a great aluminum business. The product group now includes lithium, the logic being that aluminum and aluminum are the 2 businesses within Rio Tinto with the biggest processing content. We will try to apply to Rio Tinto Lithium some of the recipes that are proving successful for aluminum. While putting these 2 business together, we'll keep a streamlined leadership structure and stay lean, moving from 2 operational production activities to 3, with an almost unchanged senior leadership structure at the product group level.

Moving now to aluminum. Rio Tinto owns the most profitable integrated aluminum business in the Western world. Our strategy in that business is unchanged, and you can see it on that slide with its 5 pillars. But the first reason why we can implement this strategy successfully is our own competitive positioning driven by progress on our operational excellence journey. It starts with the safety of our people and contractors. We have been stable on that front in 2025 at good levels, but with a remarkably low severity of incidents.

Our operations performed well in 2025 with great operational stability for our aluminum smelters, with a second consecutive record year for bauxite production and with efficient cost discipline. Our fixed cost will come down in 2025 versus 2024, despite higher production. In terms of production, this performance will allow us to be above the upper end of the revised bauxite production guidance to grow to the midpoint of the range for alumina and to be around the high end for aluminum.

We also progressed to our targets on project execution, as you can see on this slide. And the same discipline applies to the way we spend capital in our Atlantic and in our Pacific operations.

Back now to operational excellence. Operational excellence in aluminum is nothing more than the fruit of our frontline labor every day of the work they do. It is a sum of micro and macro actions that enable us to improve our performance and manage our risks. First, at the root of this journey are decades of accumulated experience and expertise from all the companies that form today Rio Tinto Aluminum. Second is the effort that has been engaged to empower people on site, to develop their skills in problem solving, to develop their ability to anticipate and to fix issues at the point of impact. Third, and I would say most importantly, the frame of all this is our capacity, especially in aluminum smeltings, to compare all our operation with each other, we operate 13 smelters in the world, and to be able to define for each performance indicator at each smelter what best looks like and then to draw a clear multiyear road map on improving each of these KPIs to ultimately reach best-in-class across the board.

This is what you can see sketched on the bottom right on this slide, but we go into much more granularity. We look deep at each value lever, and we track execution progress on an ongoing basis as part of our management operating system. All of this will now be demultiplied by our digital initiatives.

This operational excellence foundation and the stability, we're also at the core of being able to react with agility to the volatility created this year by U.S. tariffs, and that was achieved, thanks to integrated operational and commercial efforts. Over time, the U.S. market premium has moved to a level which today broadly reflects the 50% tariff. But we also acted. We mitigated some impacts, for instance, by being flexible of the destination of our Canadian aluminum production, moving some volumes when economically sensible from the U.S. market to European markets.

I think it's also important to note that this market movement in the U.S. have strongly reinforced the strategic logic of our Matalco acquisition in secondary aluminum. Matalco is a strong beneficiary of the current context with higher utilization rates and higher margins.

In 2025, we continue to work to improve the positioning of our business for the future. This has been the case for our Pacific operations. I mean, together, this operation represent 40% of our asset base, and they provide a commensurate contribution to our profitability.

Two years ago, we engaged ourselves on a path to restore the competitiveness and the sustainability of these assets from a footprint and also from an environmental standpoint. And you can see on this slide the many milestones that have been achieved. In this frame, we announced a month ago that our Tomago smelter in Australia, which is the largest in the country, was beginning consultation with its employee and its future. And this consultation process has since then been completed and conversation with federal and New South Wales governments continue towards hopefully a positive outcome.

In parallel, on the right side, we have continued to develop with a few important steps. ELYSIS' technology reached a critical milestone a few weeks ago with a successful start-up of the first 450,000 per industrial size spot. This is a major achievement. And our greenfield projects in Finland and India continue to progress towards decision steps.

So in summary for aluminum, I would say the following. Our integrated value chain is proving its relevance every day. We lead our industry in margins and in technical performance. We have a clear road map to the full potential of all our assets. We are performing operationally and financially and on track to our 2030 return on capital target that we announced in Quebec last year to many of you. We want to be the most relevant partners to governments, to communities, to customers and to the leading global OEMs in the world. And the latter with the global OEMs is even more possible today that lithium is part of our portfolio.

Well, I will start for lithium after only a few months in charge of that business is the following convictions. One, we have acquired a company which has all the assets to be a global leader in a growing market. Second, this market is strong. It will remain strong, as Vivek explained. Third, we have the right teams, we have the right long-term reserves, we have the right assets at the right place, positioned at the bottom end of the cost curve, and we mastered DLE technology.

Fourth, there is a strong track record in delivering lithium projects by the lithium team, which is now being reinforced by Rio Tinto large project capabilities. In that business, we'll focus only on a few priorities with one true North Star in mind, which is return on capital on the investment we make. And we will take a phased approach to our development, as I'm going to explain.

As you can see, in lithium, we have today a production capacity of 75,000 tonnes. The absolute focus of the team in the years to come will be to deliver the in-flight projects on time and on budget towards 200,000 tonnes by 2028. The committed projects, which will allow us to reach that capacity, regarding Argentina and in Canada. The team will focus in the years to come to deliver this on time and within the budget envelope, and we plan this to represent a CapEx spending of around $1 billion per year for the next 3 years.

Beyond these committed projects, we own the best portfolio of lithium development assets in the Western world. We'll take a disciplined approach to their development, learning and improving capital intensity from one project to the next, I mean, optimizing to one single DLE technology and defining one simple, unique standardized project execution framework. That work has started. We will leverage at the same time, infrastructure in Argentina across our assets, aiming to get cost down to create the most profitable lithium production cluster in the world.

This execution model that we are working on will allow us after 2028 to develop further projects in Argentina, in Canada, with one single spodumene mine feeding our Bécancour hydroxide facility and in Chile, depending on the results on our studies. As you can see on this slide, we target to have the capital intensity from current levels, shorten execution cycle, while moving production cost even more to the bottom of the cost curve. This will allow to generate returns of at least 15% on every single project.

So to conclude, we have a world-class lithium business and growth pipeline. And I want to leave you with 2 important thoughts. The first is my optimism on the potential of Rio Tinto Lithium, which should be by the end of the decade, a 200,000 tonne production capacity business at a 50% EBITDA margin. And second, a strong sense of operative focus to execute towards this, don't be dispersed on things which are not priorities and be able then to grow the business further in a highly disciplined manner to capture market growth, and we are convinced that market growth will be sustained and substantial.

Next week, we'll be very happy to meet many of you in Argentina to deep dive on this lithium topic.

Thank you. And now my pleasure to invite Katie to talk about copper.

Thanks, Jerome. Good morning, good evening. I'm going to wait for the words to follow me, too much multitasking. When I stood here a year ago, I was still relatively new to Rio Tinto and to copper. 12 months on in what has been a significant year for the copper industry, I'm really proud of what the team has delivered and confident in where we're heading.

Let me start with the fundamentals. Safety is our first priority. We've now reduced injury frequency rate for the third year in a row. That's not luck. It's the collective impact of clearer accountability, our safe production system and a real drive for operational excellence across our sites. For 2025, today, we've lifted our full year production guidance again. That's been driven by record growth at Oyu Tolgoi and a strong year at Escondida.

At the same time, we've lowered our unit cost guidance, reflecting disciplined cost control and better-than-expected byproduct revenues, with gold production above 600,000 ounces this year and next. The result, higher returns on capital now at 12%, 5x the free cash flow and EBITDA of $3.1 billion at the half year with a stronger second half expected.

As Simon said, the OT underground project is now complete. Our focus is shifting to productivity, particularly accelerating development in Panel 2 North. At Kennecott, stabilization work is progressing well, and we've started the work that will extend the mine life beyond 2040. And Nuton, our bioleaching technology, continues to deliver encouraging early results. I'll come back to that later. As we look to the future, the actions we're taking today give us a more resilient and diversified copper business, providing a strong platform to profitably grow, targeting 1 million tonnes of copper a year and beyond.

Let me turn to Mongolia. Higher grades, higher recoveries, higher underground volumes. All of that means we're delivering record production at OT and our safety performance remains industry-leading. With the underground material handling system and all major infrastructure now in place, 2025 will be our first year of positive free cash flow. From there, we expect mid-teens production growth in 2026 and remain firmly on track to ramp up to an average of 500,000 tonnes a year between 2028 and 2036. This year, we've successfully commissioned the conveyor to surface, primary crusher 2 and ball mill 5, which means we're now operating as a fully integrated mine.

There's still a lot of development work ahead, so productivity and cost discipline will be absolutely central. Three metrics we're focused on next year are: increasing the Panel 2 North undercut rate, driving a 5% improvement in workforce productivity and continuing to lift concentrator recoveries, already up from 82% in 2024 to 85% in the first half and targeting 87% next year.

On the Entrée joint venture license area, although we've pivoted to accelerate development of Panel 2 South, we continue to preserve sequencing optionality. In 2026, production will come from Panel 0 and Panel 2 North, but the timing of the Entrée license transfer is important to maintain the optimal development sequence. So we'll continue to work closely with Entrée and the Government of Mongolia to achieve license transfer and a long-term resolution.

Turning to Kennecott. This has been a year of transformation. Geotechnical constraints remain, but are being successfully managed. We are unloading the pit around the faults. And by the second half of 2027, we'll begin accessing higher-grade ore in Slice 2, which will reduce our reliance on lower-grade stockpiles. The return to stability is showing up clearly in the numbers. Milled ore up 12% versus 2023, and smelter online time up 6%, with our smelter shutdown completed safely, on time and below budget. We expect Kennecott to be cash flow neutral in 2025 before returning to growth in 2026.

Productivity remains a major focus. We've already lowered fixed costs, including by a 10% reduction in salaried workforce. And in 2026, we're targeting further gains by accelerating underground development, improving truck utilization and lifting smelter online time again. The underground ramp-up is progressing with first sustaining production from the North Rim Skarns expected in Q1 2026. With grades around 5x higher than the open pit, this adds roughly 250,000 tonnes of copper through to 2033. And with work now underway on Apex, the life of mine extension, our long-term conviction in Kennecott remains very strong.

Stepping back, our producing assets are only part of the story. We also have a global portfolio of projects with a diverse range of partners that underpins our long-term growth plan. We refreshed our strategy this year, which reinforced our commitment to grow in copper. First, by maximizing our value from existing operations, where a key milestone in 2026 will be supporting the selection of the next major growth investment at Escondida as the copper grades begin to decline, but also by advancing and actively managing our broader project pipeline, where we are working hard to accelerate schedules, lower capital intensity and find the right partners.

Let me dive into the details. In Australia, the Winu team have moved into full feasibility studies, which we aim to finish next year. Our joint venture with Sumitomo Metal Mining has now closed at an implied valuation of $1.2 billion, and we've submitted our environmental review to the Australian regulator, with full written support from our traditional owners. In the U.S., Resolution Copper remains an attractive opportunity. With FAST-41 designation and copper now listed as a critical mineral by the USGS, policy support for the land exchange has strengthened despite ongoing litigation at the district court level. I remain optimistic. The case for this exceptional ore body has never been stronger.

At La Granja, our partner, FQM, is making good progress with drilling and geological modeling, and we expect feasibility studies to complete in 2028. And in Chile, our Nuevo Cobre partnership with Codelco is gaining momentum with ore body knowledge studies and a major 200 drill hole campaign underway. This is a strategically important partnership in one of Chile's most prospective districts with clear synergies with Codelco's neighboring San Antonio property.

And turning to Nuton, our bio-leaching technology. I'm delighted to share an exciting update. Can we have the video, please?

[Presentation]

And here it is, over there, a sample of the first copper cathode produced using our Nuton technology. It came from our leach pad in Arizona that you saw on the video. And in 2026, we'll further validate the technology through a second trial also at Johnson Camp, testing an ore type with different characteristics. Nuton technology has huge potential, producing copper faster with higher recovery rates than traditional leaching and unlocking copper from hard-to-leach ores like primary sulfides. This is a major milestone on the journey to realizing that potential.

So to wrap up, 2025 has been a pivotal year. We're on track for record production. We've raised guidance twice, and we've lowered our C1 cost guidance. Returns on capital are up, and OT is cash flow positive. In 2026, we expect another year of progress with around 10% production growth from our operated assets. Greater stability at Kennecott sets us up for a step change in production and strengthens the mine life extension case. At OT, momentum continues with ramp-up in Panel 2 North and accelerated development in Panel 2 South. And we continue to work closely with the Government of Mongolia to unlock the full potential of this world-class resource.

We'll also further validate Nuton whilst continuing to produce copper and across our portfolio of growth options, we'll work hard to turn projects into concrete investments with attractive returns. We have a strong set of organic options, deep operating and technical capability across jurisdictions and mining methods and a scalable technology advantage through Nuton. This is a business with meaningful optionality where our ambition is clear to profitably drive copper production to 1 million tonnes a year this decade.

Thank you. I'll now hand back to Simon to close this out.

Thanks, Katie and the team, and thank you, of course, to each of you for listening in. And we will go to Q&A in just a moment. I'm conscious of the time. In some jurisdictions, we'll push straight through. But that brings a conclusion to the presentations.

And perhaps to close, I want to finish with saying how proud I am to lead this company, a 150-year-old company. And this morning, you've heard a clear commitment from us around delivering enhanced shareholder returns. And already, you can see our intent: stronger, sharper and simpler. And this means having the right assets in the right commodities, delivering $650 million in productivity benefits and savings in our first few months, and we're targeting significantly more, releasing $5 billion to $10 billion in cash from our asset base, and we're focused on delivering the 3% CAGR growth through to 2030 with a capital discipline to grow in a sustainable way, all while maintaining a strong social license. And when you put this all together, this sets Rio firmly on the path to becoming the most valued metals and mining business.

So I know we've covered a lot of ground today, and I look forward to your questions. And perhaps, I'll hand back to you, Rachel.

Thank you. Thank you, Simon, and to the whole team. So we'll now open the Q&A.

For those here in the room, please raise your hand, already doing, and we'll bring a microphone to you. For those online, the operator will unmute you.

To the operator now, please could you kindly remind our participants online how to enter the queue to ask a question?

[Operator Instructions].

We will ask everyone to limit themselves to one question with one follow-up. So let's start here in the room. And we'll go with 2, and then we go with 2 on the line. We'll start here. Thank you, Christine.

Dominic O'Kane, JPMorgan. On the $5 billion to $10 billion value release from assets, could you maybe unpack that a little bit? Are there specific assets that you have in focus? Is it driven by commodity group? And then in addition to that, what do you intend to do with the proceeds of that value unlock?

So maybe we'll start with principles. What we want to do is make sure that we have as efficient as possible capital structure, and we're really focusing our efforts on where we can move the needle. So we obviously announced the strategic reviews of RTIT and Borates, and that's included in the number. We also have a really significant footprint right around the world, infrastructure, land and obviously, the mining and processing assets. Peter gave an example earlier. And that example around $500 million is an infrastructure asset we need access to, but we don't need to own on our own balance sheet. And so that will comprise a component of it. As always, we'll continue to look at our capital base and make sure we're the right asset -- we're the right owner for all of those assets. And so that will also make up a component of it as well.

Anything you wanted to add, Peter?

No. The things are very clear.

And just on the proceeds, how you intend to use the proceeds?

So we've obviously announced our capital plans. We've announced today a reduction to less than $10 billion for that. I guess you're shaped by your experiences and probably of the view that you've got to continue to have a really strong balance sheet. In a diversified model, I think that's absolutely right because then you've got flexibility to manage through the cycle. And so with that capital program, having a strong balance sheet, ultimately, it flows to shareholders.

Thank you. Here at the front. Thanks.

This is Alain Gabriel from Morgan Stanley. Simon, you talked about the $650 million in OpEx cuts, and you talked about significantly more to come. Which businesses do you see present you the biggest opportunities for these cost cuts and which businesses you feel you're falling behind some of your peers?

One of the things I've been really pleased about in the last few months is the way that the teams come together. And so it's a full company effort. And I don't know programs like this are successful without really that engagement right across the leadership group. And so I see it coming from all the areas.

One of the things that we are doing that I would highlight is just going through every asset and looking at what is the full potential for this asset out in the medium term and what's the work we've got to do today to make sure that we're really delivering against it. And so happy with the way that, that's come together. Obviously, 3 months, $650 million is a good run rate, and we're continuing to be really focused on driving it. And probably the other point I would just add to the end of that answer. My intention is to explain the intent and then to update you as we deliver.

And a follow-up to Dominic's question on the $5 billion to $10 billion. Part of your envelope is minority asset sales. Do you have any specific assets in mind you're looking at? And is that an elegant way to recalibrate your portfolio away from commodities you like the least?

I think we should always be looking at our portfolio, and you've seen that in the announcements we've made in the last few months. And so that's what that's signaling. Nothing to announce today, but we're looking at all of our holdings.

Okay. Hold the mic there, but we will go to online now 2 questions, please, operator.

Now we'll go and take our first question. Just give us a moment. And the question comes from the line of Rahul Anand from Morgan Stanley.

Simon, congratulations on the new role. In terms of my question today, let's perhaps change tack and go to lithium. So lithium growth to 2028, I note that, that number used to be 225,000 tonnes per annum. It now sits at 200,000 tonnes per annum. Jadar was supposed to be in 2029. I presume Galaxy is one that's potentially out. But can you perhaps let us know what's driving that decrease in production into 2028? And I'll come back with a follow-up.

Yes, sure. And I'll get Jerome to add to the specifics in a moment. Maybe just to talk to the high level, we've got fantastic lithium assets, as I think Jerome articulated really well. We've got the best undeveloped lithium assets in the business, and we have a clear path through to that 200,000 tonnes by 2028. And that will be a fantastic business to us for us.

On the other projects, we'll continue to assess them based on the market fundamentals as those businesses come up to sanction. But I think with the work around capital intensity and the projections in the market, lithium will grow to be a really significant business for us.

But Jerome, do you want to talk to this specifically?

I think it's quite as you said, Simon, it's a drive to more focus and a sense of constrained -- I mean we don't want to spend capital everywhere. We want to succeed to have 200,000 tonnes, the impact obviously of Jadar being placed in care and maintenance. On your comment on Galaxy, what I said during the presentation is we'll open one mine in Quebec, I mean to feed our Bécancour hydroxide facility. We are currently studying if that mine is Whabouchi or Galaxy. That will take us probably a few months. And the outcome of that study is not yet finished too. And for the time being, we are minimizing spending on the 2 mines. And again, I think it's a reasonable capital decision to open 1 mine, not 2, but too early to say which one it's going to be.

A key point on the 225,000 versus the 200,000 is we're only doing the projects that are in train effectively and one spodumene mine in Canada. That's it until that period.

Got it. Thanks for that clarification, Peter. Look, as a follow-up, I'll stick to lithium. Now you've obviously talked about future growth, and that's going to be market and return dependent. So I guess if I ask that question in the opposite way, what lithium price in the long run do you need for that 15% IRR on your brine projects?

So the 15% in the presentation was just based on consensus. I guess the point we're making is we've got a clear path to the 200,000. As each of the other projects come up, we'll assess it based on the market fundamentals at the time. Demand in general, I'd say, has tracked in line or probably slightly better than our projections, particularly on grid storage. And it's the supply side that we need to test as those markets -- as those projects come to fruition.

Thank you, operator. We'll take one more from the line, please.

Yes, of course. Just give me a moment. And now we'll go and take our next question that comes from the line of Rob Stein from Macquarie.

Very quickly, just no clear mention of the DLC or any actions being taken to address that, given that we're 6 months on from the resolution last AGM. Looking at the presentation and the integration of Simandou into the product plans and the structure of the business, it looks like any type of asset swap for that asset might be off the cards. Can you just give us a bit of an indication of what you might be looking at in terms of closing that DLC spread and anything that you can do to enable buybacks?

Yes, sure. Thanks, Rob, for the question. On the DLC, I don't have anything to add to. I think that was pretty well covered as part of the process leading to the resolution earlier this year. In terms of the Chinalco shareholding, I would say we're actively working with Chinalco around solutions around that constraint and what that would look like. It's going to take time. My view is we continue to work at it. There will be a moment in time that will open when we can manage our way and put a solution in place to give us the flexibility on both sides of the DLC. But we're actively working, but nothing at this stage.

And sorry, just as a follow-up to that, would you see any action or ability to raise the share price getting above Chinalco's entry point as being conducive to that type of negotiation or that type of settlement that you could do with them to enable buybacks in the future?

That could be part of the solution, absolutely.

Fantastic. We'll start straight here on the floor.

Yes.

Simon, it's Jason Fairclough, Bank of America. So it's a great organic growth story. I kind of took note that the third thing out of your mouth as you were introducing yourself was the phrase M&A. So how do we think about inorganic growth? Have you got a different approach and a different mandate to your predecessor?

So one of the things moving into the role that we did is we got the team to go back over 30 years of cash flow and look at where did all the money come from and where did all the money go. And the point around that I would make is we have added enormous value to this organization. We were able to work with others and unlock synergies where we brought something to the table. And so I'm not going to talk to M&A speculation and other things, Jason, but our focus is always around what do we bring and what synergies do we liberate. And that applies to things we'll do organically, and that applies to things that we'll do inorganically and continue to do.

I think Matt today talked about in the iron ore business, over a period of time, how we're continuing to do -- put in place ways of improving that business, whether it's things like Rhodes Ridge, Texas East that was touched upon today, but improving that business where there are synergies and where we bring something to the table.

Let's just go to the right, a bit easier.

Ephrem Ravi from Citi. On the CapEx slide, up to $11 billion for the next 2 years and up to $10 billion. If you add up from a bottom-up, I mean, $3.5 billion maintenance, about $3 billion replacement and not that many projects, maybe $1 billion for lithium. So I mean, feasibly, it could be somewhere between $8 billion and $9 billion. So what, kind of, gives you sort of caution for bringing down that number further to definitely below $10 billion or maybe even $9 billion on the CapEx side?

So we've always really reserved about $3 billion for growth. And we've got the options that we see maturing through the portfolio. Whether those are ready in time, we'll see, but they will only -- they will compete for that capital based on the returns that we see from them. So if we don't have the projects that we like, yes, we'll spend less. But at the moment, we see that as less than $10 billion.

And a follow-up on the lithium. Beyond 2028, obviously, depending on the market conditions. But given the $150 million that you're taking out from rationalizing noncore projects, would any of the lithium projects or studies be part of that option that could not be materialized because of that $280 million -- sorry, beyond $200 million?

So I think the key action has been we've put Jadar on care and maintenance, absolutely clear. So the other projects, I mean, I think as sort of Jerome said, we're standing back from those. I'm really going through now to make sure that we've got the lowest capital cost sort of way of developing in a very systematic way the prime. So there's nothing else. I mean, I think the assets that we bought under the Arcadium acquisition and the options in Chile are absolutely world leading. It's just absolutely getting the right sort of development. The right capital cost is the core focus.

Let's go up here. Now I'm making it complicated. Christine, could you kindly help to move the microphone? Thank you.

RBC, Ben Davis. A quick question on Nuton. Obviously, it's early days, but have you -- in terms of what expected cash costs for that type of business when it does commercialize, any sense of that versus where we are today?

Katie? You should be standing next to copper case.

20 kilos of copper, sitting on an easel. And I'm going to stand over here. No, I think it is early days. So I think in terms of the exact kind of cost profile, it's difficult to be concrete. However, what I would say is, and actually, I think what the 18 months that it's taken us to go from starting this trial to having a piece of cathode there shows is that Nuton is a really powerful technology for kind of breathing new life into older sites because the Johnson Camp site that we're at in Arizona is an older mine, an SXEW facility that was unused for some time that we've managed to kind of restart up in really a short time frame. And for me, that's one of the reasons why this is such exciting technology.

I think there's also a lot of application on greenfields discoveries as well because, of course, the other thing about Nuton is it's good for leaching ores that have things like high arsenic content, but also places where you don't have water, you don't have as much energy available, and you don't want to build a concentrator smelter refinery type infrastructure. So it's a long-winded way of saying we think it should be cheaper. That's kind of the -- it should have an economic advantage both in terms of the sort of limited facilities required, but also then being more effective in terms of recovery rates and being able also to process ores that can't be attacked in other ways.

And just a follow-up on that. Just would it be possible to give a sense of how widely trialed this is being at other assets and how quickly to scale post the success of the second trial?

Yes. So I think I should say this is great news, but these trial periods are actually a number of years rather than a number of months. And it will take us about 3 years to really determine sort of ultimate recovery rates that we see from this first industrial scale trial. This is the first industrial scale trial. We then can also conduct another one on the same site but with different ore, which is a great synergy, right? That obviously cuts time lines and actually cost as well somewhat. And then I think you saw when I showed the map, we've got a number of different partnerships where we have partners who are very keen to deploy Nuton technology at their sites. So we're working towards different commercial arrangements with all of those. And of course, we're also looking at our sites as well. And Escondida is a place that we would like to see this working as well.

Thank you, Katie. So we will go to the line now. Please, operator.

And now we're going to take our next question, and it comes the line of Glyn Lawcock from Barrenjoey.

Simon, I just wonder if you could maybe shed a little bit more color around the 4% per annum unit cost reduction. I mean you've got 3% volume growth on the other side of that. But I would have thought the cost guidance of $650 million out only 2.5% of your controllable cost base. So is there a dollar million number that you could sort of put around that 4% per annum cost reduction target out for the end of the decade?

Thank you, Glyn. Thank you for staying up. And so part of it, you've got in terms of the volume growth there, Glyn. We've announced the $650 million today. In turn, we're obviously chasing significantly more beyond that, but I don't have a dollar number for you. And part of that, Glyn, is making sure that we do the right work. We're talking to the $650 million because that's what we've delivered. We're putting in place the machinery behind to really go after significantly more. But quite deliberately not putting a target out there today because we'll update you as we deliver. And there's a few components to that, where we will not compromise, learning the lessons from the past, particularly around asset integrity and maintenance and making sure we continue to do the work that we need to do to have a sustainable and continuous improvement mindset as we go forward. So that's that some of what sits behind and why we're not doing a specific number for you, Glyn.

Simon, can I just follow up then? I mean, even if you took the 3% volume growth, that's 3 quarters of 4%. At 1% per annum, that should be around, what, $300 million to $400 million per annum. So you're still looking at a $2 billion number. Is that math work?

As you say, Glyn, there's plenty more to come.

And the next question comes from the line of Richard Hatch from Berenberg.

I'm just interested about your thoughts on the multiple of this business. So companies with iron ore exposure of over 50% of EBITDA have generally trended lower in their multiples versus, say, growth businesses, great commodities like copper. So do you think that changes now that you're talking about an iron ore market that gets tighter into the longer term? Or do you think that you have to rather grow your lithium your copper exposure growth commodities to try and push your multiple higher?

Thanks for the question. And iron ore is a fantastic business for us. And I think we've talked today around we see it continuing to be a fantastic business for us in the future. And there has been a number of things that continually get either under or overestimated, and that's led to prices much higher than most analyst predictions really when you look back over an extended period. And I thought the chart in Matt's presentation was really striking. You look at the capital that was required to deliver the iron ore to be able to feed urbanization in China. And effectively, you're talking about the same amount of iron ore that is still needed. It's just now it's needed to replace depletion.

And the other point I would make on that slide, just to draw your attention to on the left-hand side is the capital profile. Lot of capital you needed to bring that supply in. And then that has gradually trailed off to where there's not a significant investment in the industry. On your broader point around the relativities between, I think through the cycle, there's always different points of that cycle where particular commodities are valued in a different way on the forward projection. And that's exactly why the model that we're running with a real strong focus across those four commodities is absolutely the right model because that gives us flexibility through the cycle to be able to invest in a really capital disciplined way.

Okay. And then the follow-up is just on aluminum volumes. So with AP60 ramping, should we expect that 3.25 to 3.45 to push up to more like 3.6? Or is that too much of a bullish direction?

Can you talk to that, Jerome?

It's a bit too much because AP60. We are on plan for first metal towards the end of the first quarter of next year, but AP60 ramping up to replace Arvida, which is shutting down. So we'll do a bit better in 2027 as AP60 is in full ramp up, but in 2026 is just a ramp-down, ramp-up story.

Fantastic. We'll stay back here in the room. I'll start here and then I will go on that side. I promise.

It's Patrick Mann from Investec. Maybe just a follow-up there on the iron ore. So taking your point that a lot of these projects are depletion and lower grade and replacing, just to take it one step further, how confident are you in that sort of shape of the cost curve, the steepness of it that keeps the momentum? Because I suppose there's a scenario here where the low-cost producers replace the higher cost production, and you could have overall the same volume clearing but at a lower market price, right? So do you still see, I think, it was 100 smaller companies from 20 different countries, whatever the statistic was, do you think that, that cost support keeps the cost curve favorable for lower-cost producers like yourself?

And it's a great question because I think that cost curve and the shape of that cost curve is one of the striking things about the last few years because not only the players that we've talked about before being in that range and, obviously, inflation across the industry tends to hit higher cost proportionately more, but also the fact that even some of the majors where they're now doing third-party sales, et cetera, have announced being up in that sort of higher cost range as well. Whereas, historically, we probably modeled them as a block down on the left-hand side. Actually, you've now got to bifurcate between different sources of ore as well. And so all of that goes to cost support on the right-hand side of that cost curve. And you can see it a little bit in the market over the last year, as prices have dipped down, you're seeing some of those tons actually respond really quickly and providing that price support.

Tony Robson, Global Mining Research. Aluminum, 5% increase in return on invested capital at 5 years seems a gutsy call, simply because of the nature of the industry. We've seen presentations new year past promising more. Difficult to deliver, again, no criticism. I think that's what the industry is. Of that 5%, how much is due to asset change like Yarwun curtailments, Tomago likely closure? And how much is to cost cutting? Because I assume AP60 won't make much difference over 5 years.

Maybe, Peter, I'll ask for some detail. I guess one of the things that we're very mindful of is doing the work and having a real conviction around what are the commodities we really want to invest in. At the same time, as we do the things within our control, which is what we've talked about today around simplifying, around streamlining, around driving real focus and discipline within our business, and so that's self-help. And obviously, doing the work to make sure we invest in the right commodities. But do you want to add to the detail on the...

Yes. Tony, I mean, I think the thing that underpins it is all the work that's been done about the full potential of that business, looking at every technical parameter right around our assets and saying how good can we get. And Jerome and the team have just done a fantastic job at developing that and executing against that over time. Now as well as that, there certainly is some sort of upgrading the portfolio with AP60 coming on, replacing the Arvida tonnes. That certainly is an upgrade. But I mean, this is fundamentally about the hard work of how do you really make returns in a business like that. And it's just being absolutely at the top of your game on the technical parameters of the business.

I think it's a bit hard to explain and to model. But the negative impact of ROCE on just being a bit lower in terms of smelter stability is huge. I think it's just a lot of rigor every day on every parameter in every smelter because the minute you start to deviate in the smelter on the production line, you have to put more CapEx. You have to put more costs to lose production and your ROCE comes down. So we are, I would say, very well on track, Peter, comes on the 5 points improvement target. But there is a bit of the cost control. As I said, fixed costs will be down in 2025, while production is going up. There is capital discipline. We are spending better in the business, but the major impact is a few million tons of bauxite production that we get every year by better operation. And this kind of stability index of the smelter, which is hard to correlate to ROCE, but it makes a big difference.

Okay. All the way over to that side, please.

Myles Allsop with UBS. Maybe Simandou, we haven't really talked about yet. Could you give us a sense as to what production is -- obviously, you're guiding sales, but there's going to be quite a big build through the kind of supply chain, where we are with the transshipping port, just so we can get a sense as to what tonnes we can expect in 2027-'28. I mean, you say 30 months, but I suspect there's quite a big step-up in '27 if the transshipping port is done.

Yes. So a few points on this. And Matt, please add. As we've said, there will be a few months of commissioning whilst we've had the opening its what, I would say, is probably ceremonial tonnes for this year, and we've still got some work to do in terms of commissioning. And from that point, it's the 30 months. It is a bit lumpy, but the 30 months is what we foresee in terms of the ramp up there. It's a good point you make in terms of the build of ROM stocks and stockpiles, together with obviously just the shipping time to markets, particularly China, where we'll do the tertiary crushing. And so there is a bit of a build that sits behind that in terms of working inventory. And so we're giving the sales number.

Similarly, I guess the other aspect at Simandou that's important to highlight is just the quality of the ore body there means where we're actually building roads and things, often that is iron ore. And so we're stockpiling that. And so some of that goes into the numbers for next year and will come through in '27 and '28. Do you want to add anything, Matt?

Just a few points to give a little bit more color. So if we think about first ore, basically, we've got some mobile crushing facilities and then we've loaded that manually onto the trains. If we look to next year, the constraint predominantly is the track and the rolling stock. And as Simon mentioned, we are building inventory in the mine. So we'll be at around 3 million tonnes at the end of this year and that will grow to around 20 million tonnes at the end of the following year. And I guess, when I sort of look at the work we have to do on site, we still have work in the mine, rail and port. In the mine, it's moving from mobile crushing and manually loading trains to the fixed primary crushing infrastructure and then the train load out as well. But as I mentioned, the sort of the key constraint is really around the ramp-up of the truck and the rolling stock as well.

Maybe just to follow up on that as well. Should we assume that Blocks 1 and 2 are going to ship the same amount as you? Or could they, in theory, do more? If the constraints around the rail, I presume it's 50-50 then...

Look, we'll work through that as we work through the rail as well. Certainly, what we're focused on is our Blocks 3 and 4. And I guess, to get back to the key point, when we look at the project and what's been achieved, everything is tracking either on schedule or ahead of schedule. And that's where we're really going to have our focus.

Thank you. Down the front.

It's Matt Greene from Goldman Sachs. Peter, perhaps one for you. I just want to dig into your comments on monetizing infrastructure. There's a huge amount of valuable infrastructure at this company. And we could argue, I guess, whether the market fully values at. So how are you determining right now what infrastructure Rio Tinto should or should not own?

Do you want to make any comments?

Yes, sure. I mean, part of it is looking where do we have -- where we need access to infrastructure but we may not need to own it. So we're not looking, for example, at the rail and port in the Pilbara because that's core to our competitive advantages. And so we're not looking at assets like that. But we have got assets, power station, land, wharfs, desal plants as examples where we need access to it, we may not need the full capacity of it, where we can liberate value.

And it really is about value, Matt. I mean that's about going through each asset and being opportunistic about releasing that value where we can see that value equation working for us. It's very important.

And you mentioned in your presentation is about $0.5 billion of one infrastructure asset. Do you have a sort of target range in that $5 billion to $10 billion that could be infrastructure related?

No, I don't think -- I think we've when you look across our asset base and the amount of infrastructure we carry, we're not constrained, if you like, by what we could do. But it's actually how much -- where we see value and just working systematically through that over time. That's the constraint.

Thank you. We'll actually move to one more online question, please, operator?

And now we're going to take the question from the line of Lachlan Shaw from UBS.

Just first question is on lithium. So if I look at the presentation pack, you're sort of laying out the case for the market to be about 4.5 million tonnes LCE in 2025. And if you look at the multiple waves of projects coming in the portfolio, and you're getting to about 4.5 -- 450,000, 500,000 tonnes a year LCE, so roughly 10%, 11% market share.

Do you have a -- is there a target there? Given how the industry is evolving, it's still pretty early in the overall evolution of the lithium industry. How do you think about the market structure in lithium as it moves forward?

So probably a few points. What we're really focused on is making sure we build a stronger business as possible. We don't have a particular market share that, that looks at lucky. But obviously, having the assets we've got with the Arcadium transaction, which are right down on the low end of the cost curve, puts us in a really good place. What we are doing is as those projects come through, the stage gate is looking really hard at the market and the forward projections, particularly against our thinking around that. I guess that's one of the luxuries of having a number of different projects and options coming through because we can assess that at the time that we need to deploy capital.

So Jerome has outlined the picture through to around about 200,000 tonnes. And obviously, in parallel, we'll bring those projects forward and assess them against the market fundamentals at that point. Do you want to add anything, Jerome?

I think you are right Simon. It's not about market share, it's about having the best cost per tonne of the industry, which means that the bulk of what we develop will be brines asset with DLE technology. We are working on water usage and possibilities of reinjections. But that's the bulk of what we do, we care about, being the kind of left side of the cost curve. That would allow us, I mean, to go through times where the market is going to be volatile, difficult and to generate very structural return where the market is going to be good in terms of price. But we don't have a market share target. We want to have relationships with the leading global and Chinese OEMs and focus on brine assets towards the lowest part of the cost curve.

Making money, not tonnes.

Great. Thank you so much. We'll move back to the room, please.

Liam Fitzpatrick from Deutsche Bank. First question, you mentioned wanting to be the most valuable mining company, and I appreciate these are interlinked. But what do you mean by that? Is it market cap in size? Or is it multiple?

Most value to you, most value to the communities in which we operate, most value to our employees. One of the reasons the clear ambition that we want to put there around that is because it does lead itself to multiple things. And if you look at the resource business, that's what you've got to have, social license for a business like ours, where we're going to be in places for decades. Most value to the communities isn't necessarily your financial numbers. That's how we engage. It's how we work together with those communities. And so that's one of the things we're trying to capture with that statement. But particularly most value to our shareholders because, ultimately, it's about returns to them.

And then perhaps a quick follow-up on the iron ore market. Both you and VALE have made, I think, convincing arguments around depletion. But is that something that comes in from the end of the decade? Or do you see that as sufficient to offset the growth that is coming into the market over the next 1 to 3 years?

It's something that's in the market now, a bit over 1.5 billion tonnes of iron ore every year in terms of that contestable market. And some of those assets have been in place for a long time, we've been talking about it for a few years, in the Pilbara. And obviously, you're seeing a bit more commentary around it from other suppliers as well. But it's quite striking on that graph when you think of the iron ore that was needed to fuel that growth in China and you're now looking at the iron ore that's needed just to stand still.

Thank you.

Amos Fletcher from Barclays. I just wanted to ask on noncore asset sales. Beyond borates and titanium, are you actively looking at any other material noncore asset sales? Or is that it and everything else will come from infrastructure sales?

They are the ones we've announced because that's the ones we had real confidence. But I guess it's a philosophical point here as well. We should always be looking across our asset portfolio. And an example, I think it was 2 years ago in terms of our salt business, a fewer million dollars, we sold one, the Southernmost site. I can imagine the analysts around the room was very close to that in your models for that particular asset. But we should always be looking at our capital base and trying to liberate ways and thinking about ways we can liberate value from that base.

Okay. And then just, I guess, a follow-up was on M&A in copper, in particular. Just looking at your organic pipeline, it does look -- there are certain risks around the projects. Some of them look somewhat subscale, you could say. And the industry is consolidating. I just wanted to ask, is larger-scale M&A something you're actively evaluating?

So probably two points on this one. The reason we've been so clear around project execution being part of our strategy is because you've got to be able to execute your organic growth options. We've obviously had the projects group in place for some time now, and I've touched on today some of the benefits that we really are seeing from having that project capability in place over a number of years and developing up that capability. The other point I'd make is we've got great organic options. You look across the three product groups. Each of them has organic growth options that we're able to pursue. And then in terms of adding to that inorganically, we'll continue to assess that where we bring something to the table.

Alan Spence from BNP Paribas. IOC, what does it need to achieve to retain its place in the portfolio? It's an asset that's had several downgrades over the last few years, and at least externally, it feels that the getting back to nameplate capacity is a bit of a perpetual medium-term target.

So Matt's talked today about the 20 to 23. We need to improve. We need to improve the asset. I think Matt touched on it today. Leveraging some of the skills in the Pilbara, that was one of the drivers for putting Simandou, IOC and the Pilbara together. But we need to improve the asset. If we're able to improve the asset, then it probably invites other questions down the track.

Anyone further? Fantastic. Then thank you so much. Perhaps some final remarks, Simon?

Thank you all. Thank you online. I look forward to engaging you in the coming months and years.

Fantastic. So we will now say goodbye to our online audience, thank you so much, and ask those in the room to please join us in the Haslett room, which is on the ground floor where you came in for some light refreshments and further discussions with our team. Thank you so much.