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Rio Tinto is a global diversified miner. Iron ore is the dominant commodity, with significantly lesser contributions from copper, aluminum, diamonds, gold, and industrial minerals. The 1995 merger of RTZ and CRA, via a dual-listed structure, created the present-day company. The two operate as a single business entity, with shareholders in each company having equivalent economic and voting rights. Major assets included the Pilbara iron ore operations, a 30% stake in the Escondida copper mine, 66%-ownership of the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia, the Weipa and Gove bauxite mines in Australia, and six hydro-powered aluminum smelters in Canada.

Teck is a base metals miner with copper and zinc operations in Canada, the United States, Chile, and Peru. After selling its metallurgical coal business, copper is now its major commodity by EBITDA contribution, followed by zinc. Teck is a top-three zinc miner. Its major new copper mine in Chile at the majority-owned Quebrada Blanca 2, in partnership with Sumitomo, will drive an increase in Teck’s attributable copper production by roughly 75%. Along with a number of additional copper growth options, Teck’s strategy is to rebalance its portfolio to low-carbon metals such as copper. It sold its oil sands business in early 2023 and its coal business in mid-2024.

Freeport-McMoRan owns stakes in 10 copper mines, led by its 49% ownership of the Grasberg copper and gold operations in Indonesia, 55% of the Cerro Verde mine in Peru, and 72% of Morenci in Arizona. It sold around 1.2 million metric tons of copper (its share) in 2023, making it the one of the world’s largest copper miners by volume. It also sold about 900,000 ounces of gold, mostly from Grasberg, and 70 million pounds of molybdenum. About 75% of 2023 revenue was from copper, with a further 15% from gold and about 10% from molybdenum. It had about 25 years of copper reserves at end December 2023. We expect it to sell similar amounts of copper midcycle in 2028, though we expect gold volumes to decline to about 700,000 ounces then due to falling production at Grasberg.

Newmont is the world's largest gold miner. It bought Goldcorp in 2019, combined its Nevada mines in a joint venture with competitor Barrick later that year, and also purchased competitor Newcrest in November 2023. Its portfolio includes 17 wholly or majority owned mines and interests in two joint ventures in the Americas, Africa, Australia and Papua New Guinea. The company is expected to produce roughly 5.5 million ounces of gold in 2024 from its core mines and 6.8 million in total. It is likely to sell a number of its higher cost, smaller mines accounting for 20% of forecast sales in 2024. Newmont also produces material amounts of copper, silver, zinc, and lead as byproducts. It had about two decades of gold reserves along with significant byproduct reserves at the end of December 2023.