The S&P–ASX 200 closed 1.15% higher at 3514.3 points, while the All Ordinaries finished 1.18% higher at 3458.5 points after Wall Street climbed back into green territory overnight following the previous session’s bloodbath.
In its much anticipated full-year report, Rio revealed net earnings for 2008 of $3.7 billion, down 50% on 2007, while underlying earnings jumped 38% to $10.3 billion.
“The group benefited from the quality of its assets and its strength in the bulk commodities of iron ore and coal, which tend to be priced on an annual basis,” Rio’s chairman Paul Skinner said.
“These helped to offset steep falls in the price of traded metals such as copper and aluminium.”
The miner also announced that its net debt had been reduced by $6.5 billion to $38.7 billion as at 31 December 2008.
The major miner is seeking to reduce its debts by $US10 billion by the end of the year.
Meantime, Rio this afternoon announced it’s much-rumoured $US19.5 billion strategic partnership with Chinese-backed Chinalco.
The partnership includes $5.2 billion worth of investments in iron ore, $2.1 billion worth of investments in aluminium and copper ($4.5 billion) joint ventures as well as the issue of $7.2 billion of convertible notes.
Rio entered into a trading halt earlier today pending the release of its financials and the Chinalco announcement.
Meantime, the world’s largest miner BHP finished today’s session 0.31% higher at $32.47.
Base metals on the London Metal Exchange were mixed with copper for three-month delivery closing 0.75% lower at $US3459 per tonne, while nickel slipped 3.7% to $10,405/t and zinc added 0.51% to $1172/t.
According to aDow Jones report, BNP Paribas predicted LME metals were likely to remain trading in recent ranges.
“Even though underlying Chinese metals demand growth is underperforming, we believe metal prices should overall trade within similar ranges seen during the past few weeks – in part, because producers, especially of copper, lead, nickel and zinc, have pushed through substantial production cuts,” the bank said.
Spot gold gained 0.26% to $940.25 an ounce at 4.15 pm EDT with only a couple of gold plays on the Final Call watchlist closing in negative territory.
Newcrest Mining jumped 5.1% to close at $34, Lihir Gold added 8.3% to $3.41, while Sino Gold jumped 8.7% to $5.27 and Newmont Mining added 4.9% to $6.40.
Elsewhere in the mining sector, Aquarius Platinum shot up 6.2% to close at $4.28, while Fortescue Metals Group jumped 5.8% to close at $2.56.
