Officials of London based Rio Tinto Group just released their annual 2017 Financial Results telling stockholders the company’s underlying earnings jumped to $8.76 billion dollars last year which was a 90% increase over calendar year 2016 that had profits at $4.61 billion

Net cash flow  generated from operations last year  for the global mining giant was $13.88 billion up 64% from the previous year’s $8.46 billion.  In addition Rio Tinto proudly announced the company had managed to reduce its debt to $3.8 billion which was down 60 percent from the previous year’s   debt of $9.58 billion.

Another highlight of the report released on February 7 was the annual stock dividend,  which increased to $2.90 a share for 2017, a jump of 71% from the $1.70 paid per share of common stock in 2016. Starting this month Rio Tinto  is launching another one billion dollar stock buy back program which should be completed in December of this year.

J.S. Jacquez Chief Executive Officer, said “these results brought the total cash returns to shareholders at $9.7 billion for the year.” “The strength of cash flow was the result of resilient prices during last year coupled with robust operations performance and a focus on mine to market productively,”  Jacquez remarked

In other matters shareholders were told there has been a sudden spike in demand for its high quality iron ore products in China apparently because of an air pollution crack down in that country.

Rio Tinto at the end of 2017 approved a $368 million dollar commitment to further advance the Resolution Copper project at Superior, Arizona. The company said the additional funding for Resolution will improve infrastructure and facilitate mine planning as part of the pre-feasibility study.

At its huge underground copper mining project , the Oya Tegai Mine in the country of Mongolia, new contractors continue to mobilize a total workforce of over 6,600 at the end of last December. In regards to Regulatory matters, Rio Tinto said it continues its full cooperation with the investigations by authorities in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia into the $10.5 million aggregate payments to a consultant providing advisory services on the Simandou project.

On October 17 2017, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging violations of the anti-fraud, reporting, books and records, and internal controls provisions of the federal securities laws against Rio Tinto, a former CEO, Tom Albanese, and a former CFO, Guy Elliott. The complaint seeks an injunction, civil monetary penalties, and disgorgement of any ill-gotten gains.  The complaint’s allegations relate to Rio Tinto’s disclosures and financial reporting for its former coal operations in Mozambique. Rio Tinto denies these allegations and said that it will defend itself vigorously. 

At the same time, Rio Tinto reached a settlement with the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority in relation to the timing of the impairment of these Mozambique coal operations.