Río Tinto Minera (RTM) was a Spanish company in the mining and industrial sector, whose activity was centred on the Riotinto-Nerva mining basin. Originally a subsidiary of the Explosivos Río Tinto (ERT) group, the company was active between 1978 and 1995, going through various economic difficulties. RTM ended up ceasing its operations due to its heavy debt and the crisis that the mining industry was going through in those years.
History
Creation and early days
The company was created in June 1978 as the successor to, following the departure of the Patiño group from its shareholding years earlier. Initially, RTM was 75% owned by the Spanish group Unión Explosivos Río Tinto (ERT) and 25% by the British Rio Tinto-Zinc Corporation (RTZ), although the latter increased its shareholding to 49% during the period 1979-1980. RTZ was the heir to the historic Rio Tinto Company Limited, which had controlled the Rio Tinto mine complex between 1873 and 1954. With the creation of Rio Tinto Minera, the ERT group brought all the business lines in the mining basin (copper, gold, silver and pyrites) under the same management. Finding that the business was not producing the desired results, the company's management adopted an expansion strategy that included new exploration plans for the following years, a modernisation of the equipment used and an expansion of the mining work in the deposits.