Company: RTNTF
Filing Date: 2025-02-20
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001628280-25-006642
Chunk: 52

Company: RIO TINTO LTD
Filing Date: 2025-02-20
Form: 20-F
Chunk 52
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 |  2,590 |    596 | 335%   |
| Capital expenditure — excluding EAUs⁴ (US$ millions)              | -2,055 | -1,976 | 4%     |
| Free cash flow (US$ millions)²                                    |    526 | -1,386 |        |
| Underlying return on capital employed (product group operations)⁵ |     6% |     3% |        |

1. Average realised price for all units sold. Realised price does not include the impact of the provisional pricing adjustments, which negatively impacted revenues by $92 million (2023: $2 million positive). 2. Accountability for Rio Tinto Guinea, our in-country external affairs office, remains with Bold Baatar, and has therefore moved from the Copper product group to “Other operations” following his change in role to Chief Commercial Officer. Accordingly, prior period amounts have been adjusted for comparability. 3. Net cash generated from operating activities excludes the operating cash flows of equity accounted units (EAUs) but includes dividends from EAUs (Escondida). 4. Capital expenditure is the net cash outflow on purchases less sales of property, plant and equipment, capitalised evaluation costs and purchases less sales of other intangible assets. It excludes EAUs. 5. Underlying return on capital employed (ROCE) is defined as underlying earnings (product group operations) excluding net interest divided by average capital employed. Financial performance Improved financials benefited from the steady ramp-up at Oyu Tolgoi, the strong performance at Escondida and the successful restart of the Kennecott smelter, following the rebuild in 2023, releasing working capital through the drawdown of inventories, enhancing operating cash flow. Underlying EBITDA increased by 75% compared with 2023 and free cash flow turned positive supported by a strong LME copper price and higher volumes. Overall, mined copper production rose by 13% and refined copper production by 42% . Copper C1 net unit costs, at 142 cents per pound, reduced by 53 cents per pound, or 27%, from 2023, reflecting cost efficiencies on the higher mined copper production at Oyu Tolgoi and Escondida, and higher refined copper production at Kennecott, following the smelter rebuild in 2023. We generated significantly higher net cash from operating activities of $2.6 billion , which included higher dividends from Escondida.