Cape Town, South Africa – Chris Aitchison, Managing Director, Rio Tinto SimFer used Rio Tinto’s keynote speech at Invest in Mining Indaba 2026 to highlight the progress made on Simandou and the potential for the mining industry to learn positive lessons from the project’s development.
Mining Indaba is the world’s largest annual mining investment conference, held in Cape Town, South Africa, bringing together governments, investors and companies to shape the future of the mining sector in Africa. It serves as a key platform for discussing investment opportunities, sustainability and development across the continent.
Speaking to the audience of Government officials from across the continent, mining companies and investors, Mr. Aitchison highlighted the unique strength of the Simandou partnership: “Everything we have achieved at Simandou has only been possible because of partnership.
The employees who give their all, communities who welcome us, suppliers and contract partners who bring their expertise and energy to our shared goals and a government partner that has shown determination and leadership.”
Referring to Rio Tinto’s role in the project, Chris said: “Rio Tinto is proud of what we bring to this partnership – particularly our project management capability, standards on Health, Safety, Environment and Communities and Security and our demonstrated commitment to driving local content and capability development.”
Further reflecting on the project, Chris said: “I’m proud to say that just over 18 months after major construction began, we can now call ourselves a mining business.
The progress we see today is shared progress. And the future we are building will be shared even more strongly.”
You can read Chris’s speech in full here: Chris Aitchison speech