CERAWEEK-Rio Tinto expects Resolution Copper mine to open by mid-2030s

By Ernest Scheyder

HOUSTON, March 24 (Reuters) - Rio Tinto RIO.L expects to open Arizona's Resolution Copper mine by the mid-2030s, a senior executive of the miner told Reuters on Tuesday.

The Anglo-Australian mining giant this month gained control of acreage needed to build one of the world's largest copper mines after a years-long court fight.

The company has now begun a $500 million drilling campaign to explore the 30% of the deposit it previously could not access. That research will help the company decide its production timeline, but first copper is expected within a decade.

"We are quite committed to bringing copper on as quickly as we can," Katie Jackson, head of Rio's copper business, told Reuters on the sidelines of the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston. "This is something we want to do in the early to mid 2030s."

Rio operates Utah's Kennecott copper mine and smelter, with all of its production consumed inside the country. The only other U.S. copper smelter is operated by Freeport-McMoRan FCX.N.