Rio Tinto Group

Hello and thank you to everyone tuning in. Before we begin, I acknowledge and pay my respect to all traditional owners and First Nations people that host our operations around the world. I am today in the United States, so we are doing results a little differently this year. But I hope the message comes through loud and clear. Our culture is changing and is improving our performance. We are again leader in project development and have excellent growth momentum. The diversification towards copper, aluminium and lithium is happening at pace. And we are delivering consistent shareholder value as we grow, build and diversify our portfolio. Now, let's look at the evidence. Our production has grown for the third year in a row. Copper-equivalent production increased 1% in 2024 and our mid-range guidance indicates another 4% growth this year, led by the ramp-up of oil-told oil. The 4% excludes Arcadium-Lethium, so you can see we are already on our way organically. The acquisition only brightens the outlook. As we set out at our investor day in December, this puts us on course for a decade of 3% compound annual production growth. And this is not growth for the sake of growth. This is about investments that create more value from existing assets and diversifying our portfolio towards future areas of growth. We have really good momentum and the way we have built it is simple. a relentless focus on our four objectives. First, best operator. The safe production system is driving clear improvements that we will build on and accelerate. It was very encouraging for me to speak to our iron ore colleagues in the Pilbara a couple of weeks ago and understand how the evolving culture and systems are empowering them to make continuous improvement. We have more work to do on this objective to unlock value from all our assets this year. And that's a major opportunity. Becoming best operator also means creating a safe environment and safe culture for our people. We are determined to learn from the deeply tragic events we experienced in 2024 to improve upon our processes everywhere. Second, impeccable ESG. We have an action plan to decarbonize and its value accreted. Good for the climate, good for business. I'll come back to that later. Next, excellent development. The tremendous progress at Simendu, Eurtolkøy and Rincon showcases our project building expertise. Peter will share the insights with you in a moment. And finally, social license, having spent time on country in Western Australia recently, I'm reminded of how fundamental this objective is to everything we do. We must constantly earn the right to operate and grow, and we cannot take our license for granted. Right now, I think we are in a good place. When I talk to our stakeholders, I sense we are building the trust and deeper partnerships needed to unlock sustainable business opportunities. Our four objectives are driving us forward in our ambition for a decade of growth and to deliver consistent returns to our shareholders. Our strong operational and financial performance support this conviction. We have increased production volumes and sales volumes and we remain very profitable, even in a weaker iron ore price scenario. This resilience is underpinned by an increasingly diversified portfolio. Peter will go into more detail, but I want to bring to your attention that the net operating cash flow, this increased 3% last year, supported by a stronger performance from copper and aluminium. Looking at the second half of the year, you can see how much momentum we are gaining from these assets and that our distinct commodity mix is now paying off. Our strategic investments are adding value and our balance sheet is in good health, putting us ahead of the curve. This means no surprises. We are paying ordinary dividends at the top end of the range for the ninth year running. We have a resilient, highly valuable business today. We have built a solid base for future value. And once again, we are paying back to our shareholders. With that, I will hand over to Peter.

Thanks, Jacob. I have a reasonably simple task today to summarise our strong financial performance for three reasons. Firstly, the majority of our assets are performing well, and we're starting to see productivity breakthroughs as SPS matures. As always, there are challenges, but the underlying trajectory is more operational consistency and continuous improvement. Secondly, we are seeing good discipline on costs, working capital and capex, resulting in strong cash flows. The improvement in our cost performance in 2024 was particularly good to see after several years of high inflation. Thirdly, our projects are on track, underwriting the next phase of the Group's growth plans and incremental cash flows. So turning to the numbers, underlying EBITDA was down just 2% to $23.3 billion, despite an 11% lower iron ore price, with a rising contribution from our aluminium and copper divisions. Operating cash flow was particularly resilient, rising 3% with a 67% EBITDA cash conversion rate, up from 63% in 2023. With our share of capital investment rising to $9.5 billion, we ended the year with net debt of $5.5 billion. And as Jacob said, we have maintained our track record of a 60% payout for the ordinary dividend, equating to $6.5 billion. These strong results have been achieved against a complex macroeconomic backdrop and a mixed demand picture for our products dependent on end use. Firstly, the property sector globally has been soft. In China, it has been weak for a number of years, with steel demand down by as much as 30% from its peak in 2020. Elsewhere in the world, construction has been dampened by higher interest rates. Second, traditional consumer and industrial sectors have tended to be more stable and generally supportive for metals. And this picture is pretty consistent across major markets. And third, demand from the energy transition, which has not only buoyed growth for copper and aluminium, but also been a significant factor in holding up demand for finished steel due to investment in renewables and the grid. Energy transition sectors accounted for around 20% of Chinese GDP growth in 2024. The effects have been less pronounced elsewhere, but we expect it to remain the major driver of demand growth globally. And this is where we are spending most focussed in terms of our growth programme. The significant inflationary pressures of the last few years have changed the shape of industry cost curves, resulting in higher prices for many products, given the correlation between prices and costs. But it's important to have a very balanced view of the demand picture. Our financial results are not the product of a global economy firing on all cylinders. Turning now to EBITDA. In 2024, we really started to see the benefits of our diversified portfolio and operational improvement. Higher prices for copper, bauxite and aluminium, together with rising copper and bauxite volumes, helped to offset much of the impact of the iron ore price decline. As we set out at our Capital Markets Day, over the next few years we expect to see our financial results increasingly driven by the whole portfolio of assets, not just the Pilbara. Our improving operational stability and intense focus on cost discipline is starting to bear fruit. Just to give you a few examples, we have already lowered KED count in iron ore as part of our recent streamlining programme and have reduced group-wide functional costs by 3% year-on-year. This is all about right-sizing for the future. Meanwhile, copper unit costs on a gross basis, that is, to say before by-product credits, were down 4% on 2023 as we achieved greater cost efficiencies. So overall, we really feel we've turned a corner. The post-COVID inflationary environment was challenging, but costs are now under control and SPS is kicking in, which gives us good momentum going into 2025. The EBITDA waterfall underlines this stability. Commodity prices, as ever, were the biggest driver, netting out to $1.6 billion negative. The net effect of lower energy and market-based import costs more than offset the impact of general inflation of around 3%. In copper equivalent terms, our production was up just over 1%, mostly driven by our rising copper volumes in line with the ramp up at OT, higher grades at Escondida and the restart of the Kennecott smelter. This compensated for a modest decline in iron ore sales. Expiration and evaluation was $300 million lower, mainly a function of Simundu costs being expensed for a good chunk of 2023 as we finalised agreements. Our underlying spend levels are stable at around $1 billion a year. Turning to cash unit costs, our performance was more positive in the second half, as expected, and broadly flat for the year. We had lower unit costs in aluminium and copper, which were matched by adverse unit costs in our other businesses, mainly driven by lower volumes. So all in all, this brings us to strong underlying EBITDA of $23.3 billion. Onto the product groups where we enjoyed a rising contribution from aluminium and copper. Iron Ore delivered more than $16 billion of EBITDA in 2024. Realised pricing was strong at 99% of the index and we saw good levels of productivity improvement and met our shipments guidance. This was all achieved despite the derailment earlier in the year and some adverse weather conditions in Q4 with unusually high rainfall. Unit costs came in at $23 a tonne and we are guiding to around 3% higher this year at the midpoint. 2025 is going to be demanding, as Simon highlighted in December, with depletion peaking at 19 million tonnes. However, we are targeting another 5 million tonnes of productivity improvement from SPS, and Western Range is on plan to commence production in the first half. We continue to advance our next four Pilbara Mine replacement projects. These are progressing well, although timelines are of course subject to receiving environmental and heritage approvals. The product strategy work is ongoing. We are closely reviewing customer requirements and available ore grades. Unfortunately, this year has started with some very challenging weather conditions in the Pilbara. Tropical cyclone Sean delivered more rain in one day than the wettest January on record and was followed by three more cyclones. First quarter production is impacted, but importantly, our full year shipments guidance is unchanged. Our aluminium performance was impressive, in particular for smelting and bauxite. We were able to take full advantage of stronger markets, leading to a 61% increase in product group EBITDA. Copper was similarly strong, driven by higher prices and rising volumes across the three operations. Lassie Minerals, where TiO2 volumes reflected weak Western market conditions for pigment, while IOC has still not achieved the operational stability we're striving for. On the plus side, we achieved Rincon First Lithium from the starter plant and approval for full-scale operations. Moving to the safe production system. This is now being deployed at 31 or 80% of sites and we're deepening maturity at the initial locations. Our Ameren mine in Queensland is a great example. In 2024, it achieved record bauxite output and is now running above nameplate capacity and was a key driver of our overall 7% production uplift. Let's now take a look at OT Underground, best operator excellence in action. In 2024, we achieved all ramp-up milestones, including commissioning the converter surface. As we steadily increase its capacity, output is set to rise by over 50%. And the ramp up will continue over the next three years to 500,000 tonnes per year on average over the period 2028 to 2036, making OT the world's fourth largest copper mine by the end of the decade. We believe that we can realize even more from our existing assets. We're therefore addressing our most complex challenges head on. Kennecott's ore body is significant. It remains a real opportunity to unlock value in an attractive jurisdiction. Our job is to work through the geotechnical risks and maximize value from all open pit and underground options. And it's vital we turn this asset round and set it up for the future. Over the last few years, we have learned a lot about the complexity of IOC. And as I mentioned in December, we are systematically working through the bottlenecks in order to achieve operational stability. Elsewhere, we are deepening partnerships, bringing Sumitomo into the Winu project and working closely alongside our Chinese partners at Simundu. I was in Guinea last month and was struck by the tremendous progress over the last year. We remain confident that we will achieve first production at Simfer Miningate later this year and ramp up over 30 months to 60 million tonnes per year. Lastly, on decarbonisation, we have signed renewable power contracts for around half of Boyne's needs and secured a more flexible energy supply for ANZUS, as well as increasing our stake to 100%. We continue to take a very disciplined approach to capital allocation. Our capex guidance is unchanged, with growth of around $3 billion each year. The major commitments in 2025 are completion of OT Underground, the ongoing delivery of Simundu, and the start of construction at Rincon. Over the next few years, production from our projects will take off, particularly driven by OT and Simundu. Our balance sheet strength is the key enabler here. It allows us to run our business consistently and maintain investment through the cycle, offering resilience and creating optionality, such as our acquisition of Arcadium. We remain committed to maintaining a strong balance sheet. And finally, the dividend. In line with our usual practice, we have declared a 60% payout for the full year ordinary. Our commitment to consistent shareholder returns is unwavering, and we now have a nine-year track record of paying at the top of the range. With that, let me pass back to Jakob.

Thank you, Peter. We have made great progress executing our strategy and objectives in 2024. As Peter showed, our momentum towards best operator is helping us get more from our existing assets. The underlying driver is our evolving, more psychologically safe work culture, creating a less hierarchical and more humane organization. We are also capturing operational learnings as we develop major projects. For example, Simendu is progressing at a breathtaking speed on schedule and on budget. Of course, 2024 was the year of lithium as we sought to diversify our portfolio further. And our deepening project expertise is giving us the tools we need to also build a world-class lithium business. Rincon went from Greenfield to First Lithium in only 32 months and we are now scaling up the site with confidence. Meanwhile, combining our Rincon learnings, technology and balance sheet with Arcadium's expertise will allow us to realize the full potential of Arcadium's assets. The acquisition is advancing at pace and set to close within the first quarter. Enhancing our existing operations and evolving our portfolio in line with demand provides a strong base for us to succeed in the short, medium and long term. Yes, we can expect more global volatility in the year ahead, but our strategy enables us to be resilient in an uncertain world and capture new opportunities as they arise. So let's look at the year ahead. There are important milestones to come, including Oya Tolgoi's ramp-up, first production at the mine gate from Simundu, and the rollout of technologies, including AP60. And throughout our year, our priority is to intensify our focus on best operator to drive improvements everywhere. The outlook gets even more exciting further down the line. One million tonnes of copper a year this decade, growing our leading aluminium business, expansion in high-grade iron ore and a leading lithium business. That's not all. We have a rich pipeline of projects, exploration and technologies in development that will support our growth and provide materials needed for the energy transition. That brings me on to decarbonization. It is worth highlighting that we made significant progress in 2024. This was a record year for our emission reduction. We have moved from strategy to action, cutting emissions by 14% between 2018 and 2024, bugging the trend at a time when they are on the rise globally, and we have done it without compromising our shareholder returns. 2024 was also a record year of project approvals to meet our future targets. These recent commitments have significantly advanced our progress towards our 2030 target to cut emissions by 50%, which we are pursuing with a relentless focus on value. In summary, our strong operational and financial results tells us Rio Tinto has momentum on its trajectory for a decade of growth. We have also shown leadership in project development and we are embedding those learnings throughout the organization. Crucially, we are delivering consistent shareholder value as we diversify and decarbonize our portfolio and strengthen our business further. No matter what comes our way, cyclones and all, I have confidence that it will be a very decent year ahead because I have an excellent team and we have an excellent resource base. Thank you.