Rampant Pilbara cyclones leave $150 million bill and largest dent in Rio Tinto’s iron ore exports since 2019

Four cyclones in the Pilbara have left Rio Tinto with a $150 million clean-up bill and put the iron ore miner about 13 million tonnes behind its production schedule for the year so far.

The Anglo-Australian miner shipped 70.7 million tonnes of its key commodity from January to March 2025, the lowest quarterly shipment figure from its WA iron ore division since 2019, flagged by The West Australian earlier this month.

The performance is a 17 per cent slide from the three months to December and a 9 per cent decrease from the same time last year.

Rio said on Wednesday that mitigation plans were in place to offset about half of the missed tonnes at a cost about $150 million to complete “rectification works and contracting mining activities”.

The series of cyclones in January and February caused mass disruption and flooding across the operations of WA’s biggest mining operations. But Rio copped it worse than key rivals BHP and Fortescue.

BHP’s March quarter shipments are expected to fall 2 per cent year-on-year, while Fortescue is likely to record an uplift after a train derailment punctured 2024’s numbers.

“Production was affected by extreme weather events that impacted our Pilbara iron ore operations,” Rio Tinto chief executive Jakob Stausholm said.

The carnage from those extreme weather events in the Pilbara means Rio’s iron ore output for the full-year is at this stage likely to be at the lower end of its 323mt to 338mt production target. Losses stemming from the cyclones was about 13 million tonnes, Rio said.

The heavy rainfall brought by Cyclone Sean in January put a railcar dumper — used to transfer tonnes of ore from rail cars on locomotives to ships for ready export — out of action for over a month at its East Intercourse Island port facility.

That particular port facility shipped about 45 million tonnes of iron ore for the miner in calendar year 2024, representing just over 13 per cent of the 328.6mt Rio produced during the period.

Iron ore unit costs of between $US23 and $US24.50 per wet metric tonne were unchanged despite the disruption.

The miner also ticked off a milestone of achieving first ore through at the new Western Range mine during the quarter under a joint venture with China Baowu Steel Group. A $US1.8 billion investment on the Brockman Syncline 1 mine was also approved.

Both projects are gearing up to replace tonnes from Rio’s older deposits in the Pilbara that are returning declining grades after years of mining.

After a steady drop in 2024, iron ore prices have been relatively stable since the start of the new year. US President Donald Trump’s tariffs triggered a fall in the steelmaking commodity to below the $US100 per tonne benchmark at the start of April.

“There was limited impact on our commodities from the imposition of tariffs in Q1,” Rio said on Wednesday. “However, there is an uncertain future impact from tariffs on the commodity markets going forward.”

At an annual general meeting earlier this month, Rio’s chief executive Mr Stausholm said tariffs we’re “between nations” and said it was “fundamentally important” the mining giant didn’t take a view on them.

“We have big operations in the US, and we are also exporting products into the US. So there might be certain things that goes in our favor, there might be certain things that doesn’t go in our favour,” he said in London.

Rio indicated sentiment regarding China and its property sector, a huge indicator of steel demand, had stabilised.

“The property sector saw signs of stabilisation through improvements in new home sales and the drawdown of inventory. Compared to the same period last year, there was growth in most other sectors, including infrastructure, consumer durables and manufacturing.”

Rio shares fell 1.2 per cent on the release of its quarterly results to $110.08.