India and South East Asia tipped to be key future market

ABC NEWS (Australia)

China's demand for Australia’s iron ore is expected to slow but the world's biggest producer of the commodity is betting on India taking over. Rio Tinto plans to open a new mine every year until the end of the decade to meet the expected demand. But it's not an outlook shared by Australia’s two other iron ore giants.

Transcript

00:00 Australia's $124 billion a year iron ore sector is nearing a crossroads as the urbanisation

00:09 of China nears its peak.

00:11 The world's biggest iron ore producer, Rio Tinto, says a burgeoning India and other South

00:16 East Asian markets will take up that demand.

00:20 As we look forward in the next 20 years, we'll use as much iron ore as we've used in the

00:24 last 30 years.

00:26 Analysts say new mines are needed because old ones are starting to run down.

00:31 Rio Tinto talks to having 130 million tonnes of new mine supply coming into the system

00:37 by 2028.

00:39 To that year they have 90 million tonnes of depletion.

00:42 That's a huge amount of lost production they need to replace.

00:46 Rio Tinto's newest mine, Gudai Dari, opened in 2022.

00:51 A year into the life of this mine, 43 million tonnes of iron ore have been dug out of the

00:56 ground behind me.

00:58 Just part of the 335 million Rio Tinto hopes to export this year.

01:04 The world's biggest miner, BHP, doesn't see India as the major customer Rio Tinto predicts

01:09 it'll be.

01:10 BHP is instead focusing on what it says are part of the new mega trends of mining.

01:17 That's really potash, copper and nickel where we want to grow more quickly in those commodities.

01:23 The third biggest player in the market, Fortescue, is focusing on decarbonising its product.

01:29 We're very positive in the way that China is reinventing itself to also take advantage

01:36 of a green iron ore, green steel future.

01:40 Three visions of the future from Australia's three biggest players.

01:45 Australia's financial stability hinges on what happens next.

01:48 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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