Creamer Media Login

Rio Tinto removed from Norway blacklist after selling polluting mine

25th June 2019

Font size: - +

LONDON – Norway’s $1-trillion wealth fund has removed Rio Tinto from its investing blacklist after the world’s second-biggest miner sold out of the controversial Grasberg mine in Indonesia.

Norway has refused to buy Rio Tinto stock for more than a decade because of the environmental damage caused by one of the world’s biggest copper and gold projects. Today, after a recommendation from its Council on Ethics, the fund said it had revoked that exclusion.

Rio agreed to sell its stake in Grasberg last year for $3.5-billion. The mine, operated by US company Freeport-McMoRan, is highly contentious. Every year it dumps tens of millions of tons of mining waste into an Indonesian river system and will continue to do so for years to come.

The announcement will be welcomed by Rio as the Anglo-Australian miner seeks to burnish its environmental credentials. After offloading its last coal mine in 2018, the company has sought to distinguish itself from rivals that still have fossil-fuel exposure.

Norway’s wealth fund is at the forefront of efforts to divert money away from companies with environmentally damaging practices. Earlier this year it agreed to ban investing in companies that mine more than 20-million tons of thermal coal, the most polluting fuel, a year. Miners including Glencore and Anglo American are set to fall foul of this rule.

Edited by Bloomberg

Comments

The functionality you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

Click Here

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

➕

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

➕

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION

➕