In the first quarter of 2025, Rio Tinto, one of the world’s leading iron ore producers, recorded its lowest shipment volume since 2019 — only 70.7 million tons from its mines in the Pilbara region of Australia. This is significantly lower than last year’s figure of 78 million tons and also below the forecasts of the analytical firm Visible Alpha, which predicted 73.6 million tons. This was reported by Reuters.

The primary reason for the decline was a series of tropical cyclones that caused significant damage to port infrastructure, particularly the Dampier port, resulting in volume losses of up to 13 million tons. The company warns that further weather-related disasters could jeopardize achieving the lower end of the annual shipment plan of 323-338 million tons of iron ore for 2025.