TRQ - Rio Tinto sees Oyu Tolgoi underground production starting in 2022

Rio Tinto (RIO) says it expects to achieve sustainable production from its Oyu Tolgoi underground copper project in Mongolia - one of the world's largest known copper and gold deposits - by October 2022.The company says the budget for the first phase of the underground project would come in at $6.75B, and caving operations are slated to begin in 2021 once it had received outstanding government approvals, finalized a new power source and reached agreement on financing.Oyu Tolgoi is expected to produce 480K metric tons/year of copper during 2028-36 from the open pit and underground, compared with 146K mt in 2019 from the open pit.The underground ore reserve has an average copper grade of 1.52%, more than 3x higher than the open pit ore reserve, and Rio says the size and quality of the asset provides additional expansion options, which could see production sustained for many decades.Oyu Tolgoi is jointly

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Rio Tinto sees Oyu Tolgoi underground production starting in 2022