The world’s largest iron ore producer, Rio Tinto Group, is confident in its Canadian business operations as it works on creating a greener manufacturing process.
In an interview with BNN Bloomberg’s Andrew Bell on Monday, the company’s CEO explained how it has changed its business approach in Canada amid the global energy transition.
“It’s difficult to move forward with mining and metals projects anywhere in the world, and I actually think the business conditions in Canada are very good, your geology is very good,” Jakob Stausholm, chief executive of Rio Tinto Group, said.
Stausholm added that creating partnerships with local communities, such as First Nations, has been crucial to project development throughout the country.
Rio Tinto's Canadian footprint consists of several iron ore and aluminum operations. Notably, its projects in Quebec are responsible for almost half of the company’s global aluminum production, a resource that Stausholm says it is working to make carbon dioxide (CO2) free.
He explained that the company has found a way to extract oxygen so that it omits dioxide rather than CO2, stripping out emissions during the processing of aluminum. It is currently working to scale this technology, he added.
“You can see a future where you can change the manufacturing process and stop emitting CO2,” he said.Advertisement