Rio Tinto Group

So now I'd like to extend a warm welcome to all of our guests today for the 2026 half year results. Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation on whose traditional lands we are gathered on today. And I pay my respects to elders past and present. I extend that respect to all indigenous peoples around the globe. I acknowledge they continue to play an important role within our communities and our businesses. We are here today with our CEO Simon Trott and CFO Peter Cunningham to present to you these financial results. This will be followed by a Q&A session. As a reminder, the usual cautionary statements apply. Now I'm very pleased to introduce Chairman Murray, Chairperson of the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council, who will deliver our Welcome to Country today before Simon commences the presentation. I now invite Chairman Murray to the stage.

Good morning, how are you? How was the coffee? Good. My coffee was a bit like that. But a world and a country, particularly in this country, has been subject to a lot of criticism. particularly on the right and particularly on the left and there's no middle ground but if you are wanting to be welcomed by First Nations people particularly here in Sydney, New South Wales and Australia you do the right thing by acknowledging the First Nation but I want to pay respects to the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation I don't know if you understand when it comes to sunrise and sunset Sunrise comes from the east, then it travels and the sunlight travels all over, particularly Sydney, Sydney region, and then New South Wales, then across all the different cleans. There are something like in New South Wales, there are 54 cleans. Across Australia, there are over 500 different cleans. We're not as homogeneous, not as one, we're as many. And that's the purpose, is that you would have a different relationship From neighbouring clans and in particular here in Sydney. There are no traditional owners here in Sydney. So the five local Aboriginal land councils that come by default are the traditional custodians. So it means a lot that you understand the respect. We've been here for thousands and thousands of years and We want to continue to have that relationship with yourselves and to make sure, if you can, have a good dialogue and understanding and a commitment. One of the things about us as a cohort First Nations people, we are the poorest. We are the poorest Australians and we don't see that wealth transfixed or trans related to us. because all the different legislative laws that have taken place since colonisation of Australia. So I'm not going to dwell in that because I think you know what I'm saying. So with that, welcome to Sydney, welcome to all the delegates, welcome to all the investors, welcome to Sydney and I pay respects to the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. So with that, that's one thing about coming here, understanding the colonial aspects of Sydney. and that's what we've got. We've still got the colonial fix. So with that, welcome to Gadigal land, Aboriginal land, always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Thank you very much.

Thank you to Chairman Murray for that welcome to Gadigal country. And good morning and good evening and thanks very much for being here. As Rachel mentioned earlier, joined today by Peter Cunningham, our CFO, together with two other EXCO members in the audience, Jerome and Mark. So I'll start with safety, and this half we lost two of our colleagues, and I'll carry that with me. Nothing we report today means anything if our people do not go home safely. Safety is my first priority, it is Rio's first priority, and it will always be. Across the business, we are continuing to make the changes that we need to ensure our people stay safe. Now, let me tell you where this business is heading. This has been a strong half with real momentum building month on month. We're running our assets harder and smarter. Moving fast, changing how we work, and today it's showing through in the numbers. I said at Capital Markets Day last December that Rio was entering a new era and becoming stronger, sharper and simpler. Seven months on, I'm here to show the evidence. Now, two things drive everything we do. A relentless focus on both performance and on returns for you, our shareholders. Everything else follows from that. Let me take you through it. There are three reasons why Rio is the mining and the metal business to own. Firstly, we have a leading exposure amongst diverse side miners to the biggest trends of our time. Electrification, AI and digital together with traditional demand. Our commodities, copper, aluminium and lithium and iron ore sit right at the heart of these trends. These are the materials the world needs and Rio is positioned to supply them at scale. Second, along with the right commodities, we also have world class assets. They are large, low cost and scalable and we've got the balance sheet and the skills to monetise them. What makes Rio distinctive is this combination with its embedded growth. Major projects, tracking to plan and in several areas ahead. Simundu is now more than three quarters complete. OP continues to ramp up and is achieving record production. Lithium in-flight projects are advancing and the Rose Ridge study is progressing on track. This is a portfolio built for the decades ahead. Now we've talked about being more diversified and today we're delivering. Nearly 60% of EBITDA in the first half was delivered from copper, aluminium and lithium. Thirdly, and this is where I want to spend most of the time today, we are focused on driving outstanding performance. This is where we have a real opportunity to unlock our potential. These three strengths set us apart and together these are why we continue to deliver both industry leading returns as well as growth. That means consistent shareholder payments, resilience through the cycle and capturing market outsides. Outstanding performance is what turns a great asset base into a great business. and today I'll flip things around in the pack because I want to talk more about our performance first before then coming to the macro. Across the business we're changing how we operate. This goes well beyond taking out costs although we're doing that as well. We're building a more agile Rio Tinto, pushing decisions closer to the assets where our people have the accountability to act. Our momentum is broad based and you can see it in our first half numbers. We grew copper equivalent production by 3% and free cash flow rose by 75%. And the strength of this performance meant we could deliver a 43% higher interim dividend worth $3.4 billion. So let's focus on what's underpinning these operational results. When I launched our program to build a stronger, sharper, simpler Rio Tinto at Capital Markets Day last December, I told you I'd deliver $650 million in productivity benefits, and we've delivered. We've already banked $870 million to the end of June. I also told you that we would continue to grow the program. Again, we've delivered. Today I can announce we are targeting a year-end run rate of $1.8 billion, almost triple where we were just seven months ago. and there is substantially more to go as our momentum grows. This is all consistent with creating an operating culture that underpins the strongest and most valued metals and mining business and then maintaining that into the future. I'll give you a bit more sense of what we've been doing. This is not a top down exercise where we simply squeeze budgets. It's a structural change with more than 80 large initiatives running at every level of the business. This is about how we manage contractors, how we source raw materials, how we invest in digital and innovation, how we structure our teams. It's about the people closest to the work finding better ways of doing it. This is the culture of excellence I want to embed at Rio, codified through our new management operating system. Let me walk you through a few examples. At OT, we have redesigned the way we approach underground development, harnessing data and speeding drawbell construction. This is accelerated production, helping to generate around 80 million in productivity improvements. In the Pilbara, we've generated around 55 million in annual benefits. By removing redundant capacity through stronger system resilience, building on the changes we made to product strategy. And we've delivered around $40 million in annual savings across our Atlantic aluminium operations with a sharpened focus on contractor management. This follows a focused Kaizen looking to remove bottlenecks across all sites. To me, this is what operational excellence looks like in practice. It's not about slogans, it's about thousands of people making better decisions every day. And our results-driven operating model gives us the right structure to maintain that momentum. Our drive to raise performance is unlocking our copper portfolio's potential. And since 2020, we've achieved industry-leading EBITDA growth while maintaining one of the lowest cost positions in the sector. And there is more to come as we target 1 million tonnes of copper by 2030. OT continues to ramp up towards 500,000 tonnes a year, while Kennecott is targeting 40 to 50% production growth. And beyond 2030, we have a compelling pipeline of high-quality opportunities, including both brownfield and greenfield sites. So we have industry leading copper growth today, a clear path to 1 million tonnes by 2030, an exceptional portfolio of options to continue creating value well into the next decade. I've talked about how we're changing the way we work to drive outstanding performance across our assets. Let's look at the power of applying those principles across our full portfolio. We have large, low-cost assets in all the right commodities. Each has exceptional frontline teams with unique abilities. We're a leading low-cost copper producer at scale, the number one global iron ore producer, leading integrated Western aluminium producer, and the best pipeline of Tier 1 lithium options Targeting 200,000 tonnes of capacity by 2028. Together these Tier 1 assets are the engines of our business and they generated around 85% of our product growth EBITDA last year. And as we continue to improve performance, these advantages only strengthen. Let me now go back to the macro and tell you about the markets we operate in. Our portfolio gives us leading exposure among diversified miners to the biggest trends of our Electrification, AI and digital together with traditional demand. Starting with electrification, as you can see, up to 60% of the value of raw materials in an electric vehicle comes from our commodities. Of particular note is the ramp up in battery electric storage, critical for grid firming and managing the power demands of renewables and hyperscalers. And then there's AI and digital. Up to 70% of the value of materials that goes into a data centre comes from our commodities. The scale of investment is extraordinary. Hyperscale CapEx forecasts to reach near US$1 trillion next year. And let's not forget traditional demand. Our commodities account for as much as 65% of the value of materials needed to build a modern office tower in a fast-growing city. As India and the other economies continue to develop, we expect another construction wave as cities grow vertically. So, if you want exposure to the major growth trends of our time, Rio Tinto is the business to own. And the question I ask myself every day, how do we capture even more of the opportunities ahead? The answer is what I've mentioned, driving outstanding performance, having the right assets in the right commodities, and ensuring we allocate capital with discipline because ultimately capital efficiency and discipline is the bedrock of a resource business. We maintain a strong balance sheet with a single A credit rating. Every asset must justify its spot in the portfolio and we rigorously allocate capital to projects that deliver value and returns to our shareholders. World-class projects like Simundu and OT showcase that we can execute AtScale across commodities and across countries. Among our peers and against the wider industry, we've demonstrated leading performance on capital and schedule adherence. We're now reaching an inflection point as those investments start to generate cash. Turning then to cash release, our work to progress opportunities this year to release up to 5 billion of cash from our asset base is advancing. And finally, before I hand to Peter, I want to revisit our interim payout of $3.4 billion. This 43% uplift illustrates how far we've come over the half. It reflects the benefits of the previous investments and it shows our continuing commitment to you, our shareholders, as we continue to build our momentum. Now over to you, Peter.