The company sees Mozambique as an emerging coal province that does not have some of the start-up issues of its Australian operations, such as the Kestrel mine in Queensland, which has seen its expansion costs blow out by $900 million to $2 billion.

“Our Energy group is now entering a new phase, with many prospects for value-adding growth to meet expanding long-term global energy demand, while continuing to focus on operational excellence, community engagement, and environmental performance,” the company said.

“Our coal operations in Australia and Africa have expansion projects in either evaluation or execution phase.”

During 2011 Rio Tinto completed the acquisition of Riversdale, which has now been renamed Rio Tinto Coal Mozambique. This provides a substantial Tier 1 coking coal development pipeline in the emerging Moatize Basin, according to the company.

“We continue to grow our world class portfolio of energy assets through the development of the recently acquired Riversdale project and increasing production at existing operations,” Rio Tinto said.

On 25 June 2012, Rio Tinto announced that it had exported its first shipment of premium hard coking coal from its Benga.

During the first half of 2012, Rio Tinto Coal Mozambique produced 123,000 tonnes of thermal coal (80,000t attributable) and 130,000t of hard coking coal (85,000t attributable) at Benga.

As the mine is in the commissioning phase, costs net of revenues have been capitalised.