Talk:Rio Tinto (corporation)

Key remaining points to tackle

• key shareholders (doesn't seem to be any, largest instututional shareholder in 1999 held less than 4% of stock).
• environmental issues.
• labor relations.
• political issues.

--Robert Merkel 03:05, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Spotted an error in the article

The are more than dual listed, they are also on the NZX (New Zealand Exchange) under "RIO" code, —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.54.3.3 (talk) 01:08, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Comalco actually only has 2 aluminium smelters in Australia, the third is on Tiwai Point on the southern tip of New Zealand. This New Zealand smelter produces some of the purist aluminium in the world.

I'm new to the whole wiki thing so thought I'd just post a comment to point this out. Hope someone who knows what they're doing can add this to the page.

Cheers.

RTP

Isnt Rio Tinto also listed on the NYSE under RTP?

RTP = Rio Tinto Procurement. This is a purchasing & contracts division of Rio. -Bernard S. Jansen 00:24, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

RTP in this context stands for Rio Tinto plc, the British company, and these initials are used to distinguish the company from RTL, Rio Tinto Limited, which is the Australian arm.Mlb409 22:44, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Citation

"Another has been Rio Tinto's involvement in Papua New Guinea which triggered the Bougainville separatist crisis." ... is this from the company profile under 'external links'.? Citation please. Fred 16:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

deletions etc.

I have left the last the last editor a message and an opportunity to respond, before I revert. - Fred 12:46, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. I have started two new topics to allow discussion of my main deletions. Mlb409 21:35, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of Reference to Ascendant Copper Corp.

A press release describing the agreement between Ascendant Copper and Rio Tinto is available at the time of writing at http://www.ascendantcopper.com/pdf/06-14%20RTZ%20Joint%20Venture.pdf. A careful reading of this document indicates that the agreement relates to the purchase for $50,000 by Ascendant Copper of the right for five years to examine geological and other data collected by Rio Tinto between 1990 and 1997. The agreement does not commit Rio Tinto to any further expenditure in Ecuador nor does it commit Rio Tinto to make investments in any property identified by Ascendant Copper as being worthy of further investigation or development. Consequently the description which I removed (“Rio Tinto and Ascendant Copper announced a joint exploration program for exploring copper in western Ecuador”) is inaccurate. I make no comment on the ethics or otherwise of Ascendant Copper but I would have thought that such comments should be placed on a page relating to that company. Mlb409 22:19, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

The press release has now been moved to http://www.ascendantcopper.com/ReleaseDetail.php?ID=32 Mlb409 21:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

The press release has now been moved to http://www.coppermesacorp.com/_resources/news/06-14RTZJointVenture.pdf Mlb409 (talk) 00:19, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Deletion of Reference to Franco’s Purchase of German Bombers

The alleged shipments of copper to Germany in 1937-38 are discussed in David Avery’s book “Not on Queen Victoria’s Birthday: the Story of the Rio Tinto Mines” (Collins, London, 1974, p.378) He reports that investigations by the Burgos government and subsequently by a subcommittee of the Rio Tinto board indicated that no such shipments had taken place. It is certainly true that large tonnages of pyrites were requisitioned by the Nationalists and were shipped to Germany “despite the protests of the company”. In case you view that history as suspect (being commissioned by Rio Tinto), another source is Charles Harvey’s excellent book “The Rio Tinto Company” (Alison Hodge, Penzance, 1981) where more detailed data on the requisitions, together with the manner in which they were carried out, can be found. A reading of this material indicates that the situation was quite complex. The text I deleted gave a misleading (by being overly simplistic) description of actual events, as well as being inaccurate (pyrites were shipped to Germany, not copper). Mlb409 21:37, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Rio Tinto Group/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   Some comments:

   • This article shows how dreadfully important it is to specify which currency is used. It being an Australian company, I presumed figures in the infobox were referring to AUD until I read the source code and discovered it was USD. Your choice between USD and US$, but $US is not permitted.

   The article states in the "stock structure and ownership" section that all company accounts and data (except for historical data as specifically noted) are reported in USD. My initial thought was that this might be less obtrusive than listing USD before each currency amount. However, if you think I should put USD before each currency amount in the article I will do so. Alternatively I could include a sentence about use of USD in the lead, although that might be awkward as it is more a reading note than information of enough importance to include in the lead.

   See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Currencies. This is not a country-specific article, so currencies are always to be specified.

   • I have removed the two flagicons, since they only served as decoration. See MOS:ICONS (fixed)
   • I am very skeptical to include MCap figures, since they tend to vary significantly.

   I tend to agree - however the article only includes that datum as of a specific date in order to objectively establish Rio Tinto's relative size to other major global mining companies. Since it would be harder to establish an objective comparison of size to other companies without use of Market Capitalization data, I am inclined to leave it in the article for this purpose.

   I never put in MCap figures in company articles that I write. The reason is that they are so volatile that they are outdated quickly, sometimes within days. For instance, the share price of Rio Tinto on 4 December 2008 was US$59.20, while it on 22 May 2008 was US$538.00. That is almost a 90% drop in share value and thus MCap. If someone really wants to know the MCap, let them use the exchange links to check it out.

   • Currencies should be stated with their ISO codes, not spelled out. (fixed)
   • Proper nouns are capitalized, so it should be the Rio Tinto Mine. (fixed)
   • Section headers are capitalized as if they were normal sentences (not as if they are titles). (fixed)
   • It is frowned upon to use terms such as "(For more detail, see Corporate Status section below.)" Also, it should not be in italics. (fixed)
   • Normally boldface should be avoided outside the lead, unless there are good reasons. I will let the boldface in the "Consolodated Zinc" pass.

   It was my understanding that alternative names of the subject should be boldfaced.

   Not necessarily outside the lead. The boldfaces I left in place are okay.

   • Was Northern Limited acquired for 2.8 billion USD or AUD? What about Alcan? Was it USD, AUD or CAD?

   Per above, all currency data are in USD, except historical data as specifically noted. I will make any corrections as you suggest more globally above.

   • Could the list of divisions be converted to a table.

   Not sure why this would be better than the bulleted list - especially since the length of text after the bullet points varies somewhat. I relied on WP:EMBED for appropriate use of embedded lists.

   It is not the worst incident of using bullets, but I find that it is a lot easier reading information with more than one value if in a table. Anything contianing three variables must at least always be in a table.

   • Never boldface wikilinks.
   • Avoid terms like "recently", since they are very unaccurate. Also, avoid terms like "summer of 2009", since the summer of 2009 is six months appart in Europe and Australia. Some parts of the world do not have summer, and readers will find such terms alienating. The only time the use of such terms is allowed is along the line of "during the fall harvest" or "skiing in winter". Also terms like "in fact" should be avoided.

   Fixed.

   • It is uncommon to include a full list of management of a company in the Wikipedia article. I would have preferred to see it removed, and if kept it should be converted to prose. This means that the article needs to be kept under strict supervision in case of management changes in the company. Except to top-head changes, these may not even be covered in the press and difficult to monitor.

   I have removed the executive committee. For now I have left the board of directors. The executive directors are in fact the top leadership of the company. The fact that 8 of 10 non-executive directors have their own articles is indicative of their notability, and as notable persons in their own right they seem worth mentioning. Regarding your concern of monitoring changes, they are reported on the company's website and in regulatory filings in an accurate and timely manner. As a going concern there are many sections of this article that will need frequent maintenance (for example the Chinalco situation will continue to evolve and require updates), both now and into the future, and this item won't be any more onerous to update than other sections. That said, I am open to further discussion on inclusion of a board of directors personnel list if you still feel strongly about it. If kept I disagree that the section should be converted to prose, per the appropriate use guidance on embedded lists offered in WP:EMBED.

   A list of mostly blue-link people should be fine.

   • One-sentence paragraphs, such as "Sales of copper generated 8% of the company's 2008 revenues, and copper and byproduct operations accounted for 16% of underlying earnings." should be avoided.

   I know the stylistic preference is to avoid one-sentence paragraphs, but of the one-sentence paragraphs I see, they gramatically belong in their own paragraph. Simply deleting the carriage space and smooshing them onto the previous paragraph eliminates the style issue but creates weird two-subject paragraphs in its place. On the other hand, it is probably inappropriate for an encyclopedia article (too much depth) to add more information to those paragraphs to add another sentence or two. My approach was to live with the existence of one-sentence paragraphs in these limited instances. Please provide further advice.

   • Please see WP:Italics for what can be in italics. Business units are not one of them.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   • Publisher should be the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, not www.abc.net.au.

   Fixed.

   • Avoid a space between the punctuation and the ref. (fixed)
   • Remember that the ref comes after the punctuation. (fixed)
   • I am a little confused to why both both work and publisher are used for the company's web site.

   Not sure what you mean... the web site is the work, and the publisher is the company. I did fix some inconsistent references to the company web site as its "website", "webpage", "web page", etc... should be consistent now.

   The company is both the author and the publisher. Therefore, it is unnecessary to state both (since this should be inherently understood by the reader). I have never seen anyone use this method before, although it varies if people state the company as publisher or author. Normally, work should be reserved for a magazine, book, journal or newspaper, since the purpose of work is to put the publisher in italics (which should not be done with a company).

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   • Logos for companies can only be used on the article about that company in particular. Therefore, I have removed File:Chalco.png. File:Rio Tinto Alcan.svg has been kept because it is in the public domain, since it is not orignial enough to be aligible for copyright (it contians only unstylized letters).

   I think your interpretation that logos can only be used in the company article itself is a bit over-strict... I see no reason why "article" can't be replaced by "section" in the fair-use criteria you note and at WP:LOGO. Nonetheless the logos in question aren't critical to this article and this is not the place to argue the point, so I won't contest the removals you made.

   Wikipedia has a very strict interpretation of fair use. Don't argue with me, but the boys who made up the rules. For instance, it is so strict that band articles generally are not allowed to use the logo under fair use. Another example is that using the logo in a navbox between articles directly related to a single company is not permitted (down the line of for instance {{Aker Group}}.

   • Avoid forcing image sizes. (fixed)
   • Several places the images 'sandwitches' the text, which causes problems for screens with low resolution.

   I am aware of this issue and spent way more time than I care to admit fiddling with the size and placement of images. This is the best I could manage - do you think you could offer more specific suggestions and/or take a crack at it yourself? I'd prefer not to delete images as I think they add to the article.

   I can take a look at rearranging the images—it is usually something I am fairly good at.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   All in all an interesting and well-covering article. The prose is good, though there are a few details that need to be seen to. Most of the issues I have corrected myself. Arsenikk ^(talk) 11:08, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi Arsenikk, thanks for your review and helpful fixes to many of the issues you've pointed out. I have responded to your comments, above. I've made some fixes, asked for clarification on other issues you've raised, and stated my reasons for the choices I made on a couple other items on which you've indicated concern. Thanks again for your thorough review -- looking forward to your continued feedback.Bantman (talk) 16:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for not noticing your comments. Hope my feedback answered your questions. Arsenikk ^(talk) 16:42, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

AS the review is not progressing, I have failed this nomination. This decision may be challenged at WP:GAR. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:24, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Franco

A recent edit has attempted to add the word "dictatorial" in describing Franco. There are two issues with this. First, a dictator is not the same thing as dictatorial. But the main issue is that the sentence is based on a reference. Unless the reference says that Franco was dictatorial, it is not an appropriate addition, but becomes POV by the editor. Given the context in this article, is it even necessary? hamiltonstone (talk) 12:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I tried to add the word "dictatorial". I thought of the reference problem when I added the word but guessed that, since it's not a quote, it would not pervert the reference spirit.

Anyway, I do feel it's necessary adding a reference to the dictatorial, autocratic policy that Franco's regime applied during those years; eventually, those policies led the Rio Tinto Group to leave its Spanish operations. TeoRuiz (talk) 15:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for responding. Prompted by your point, I went and actually read the relevant chapter of the reference that is cited (most of the pages are available at Google Books). Far from attributing Rio's declining fortunes in Spain to Franco's dictatorial policy, it attributes the decline to a couple of things: a history of under-investment by Rio, only partly relating to (and pre-dating) the Franco regime; and tight foreign exchange dealing controls, including illegal steps taken by Rio to circumvent these. The book refers to the government's desire to "pursue more vigorously the economic modernisation of Spain" (p. 293) and that the policies that at times (but not always) adversely affected Rio were intended "to strengthen Spanish capitalism" (p.292). In these circumstances, and with a change in focus within Rio at board level, I think even the current text may be overstating Franco's role, and the nature of the government as dictatorial, which I do not dispute as a matter of general fact, appears not relevant to the discussion. Of course, if there are other reliable studies that point to other conclusions, they too should be included - but the Charles Harvey study is extremely detailed and looks like the 'gold standard' to me. cheers. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Rio Tinto espionage case

The Rio Tinto espionage case article is very outdated and has insufficient information for an article of that complexity. Likewise, the Stern Hu article has too much information not related to the biography of Stern Hu, but directly related to the Rio Tinto espionage case. Both articles are extremely outdated. I would appreciate any help in improving those 2 articles. Capital Markets (talk) 12:36, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

The obsolecence has been getting worse! This article doesn't even mention that the "state secrets" charge has been dropped. Trial is about to start, so this would be a good time to straighten it out. --Christofurio (talk) 15:07, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Another possibly useful source

I ran across this while working on Corta Atalaya, might be useful here: Riotinto, la Colonia de la Vergüenza, El Mundo Magazine, Issue 101, 2001-09-02. - Jmabel | Talk 01:19, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Involvement in the 1888 massacre

I red across the article and did not find any mention to this sad event. The wikipedia in Spanish contains enough info about it, maybe it could be a starting point to add some facts about the killing of tens of workers during a strike. --79.147.18.156 (talk) 20:00, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Environmental concerns

Article here: [1] Gandydancer (talk) 22:38, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090417053304/http://www.riotinto.com:80/whatweproduce/572_iron_ore.asp to http://www.riotinto.com/whatweproduce/572_iron_ore.asp

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External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20101213055823/http://www.riotinto.com:80/whatweproduce/218_our_products.asp to http://www.riotinto.com/whatweproduce/218_our_products.asp
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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110715134422/http://www.qit.com/eng/index.asp to http://www.qit.com/eng/index.asp
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