Rio Tinto posts 2% rise in third-quarter iron ore sales, beating estimates

Oct 14 (Reuters) - Rio Tinto reported a 2% rise in third-quarter iron ore sales on Wednesday, helped by strong mine performance and healthy port inventories.

The world's largest iron ore producer sold 85.7 million metric tons of the steel-making commodity from its Pilbara operations in the three months ended September 30, beating the Visible Alpha consensus estimate of 84.41 Mt.

This compares with 84.3 Mt sold last year.

Quarterly copper output stayed largely flat at 205 Kt a year ago, as a 27% increase in output from the Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia offset lower production at Chile's Escondida and weaker refined copper output from Kennecott in the United States.

The miner maintained its 2026 Pilbara iron ore sales forecast of 323-338 million Mt.

(Reporting by Rajasik Mukherjee & Sneha Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)