Rio Tinto Expects $5 Bln Of Addl Free Cash Flow Over Next 5 Years - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Rio Tinto (RIO.L, RTPPF.PK) announced that it is committed to generating $5 billion of additional free cash flow over the next five years from a productivity drive unveiled today as part of its long-term strategy.

Rio Tinto intends to raise productivity across its $50 billion portfolio of assets and to generate a total $5 billion of further free cash flow by the end of 2021 in addition to the cash cost reduction target of $2 billion across 2016 and 2017.

Rio Tinto chief executive J-S Jacques, in a presentation at an investor seminar in Sydney, said, "We are well on track to meet our target of $2 billion of cash cost savings by the end of next year. We are also taking advantage of any opportunity to generate value from mine through to market."

In addition, Rio Tinto expects total cash returns to shareholders over the longer term to be in a range of 40 to 60 per cent of underlying earnings in aggregate through the cycle.

Rio Tinto now expects capital expenditure to be less than $3.5 billion in 2016, around $5 billion in 2017 and around $5.5 billion in 2018, unchanged from previous estimates. Guidance for 2019 is $5.5 billion. The 2017 production forecasts generate operating cash flow of around $10 billion based on third quarter 2016 average prices.