Rio Tinto Names Alfredo Barrios As Chief Executive Of Aluminium Business

(RTTNews) - Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto Plc (RTNTF, RIO, RIO.L, RTPPF) said Tuesday that it has appointed Alfredo Barrios, a long-time veteran of British energy giant BP plc (BP, BP.L), as chief executive of its aluminium business. Barrios succeeds Jacynthe Cote, who will leave the company for personal reasons to pursue other interests.

Barrios, aged 48, will assume the new role at Rio Tinto on June 1, 2014 and join the executive committee on this date. He will be based in Montreal. Jacynthe Cote will continue in an advisory role until September 1, 2014, in order to ensure a smooth transition. Rio Tinto said that all other Group executive roles are unchanged.

Barrios most recently served as executive director and executive vice president downstream at the joint venture TNK-BP, where he was responsible for the refining, trading, supply, logistics, and marketing businesses. He joined BP in 1992 and has served in senior leadership roles in the UK, U.S., Russia and Continental Europe.

In March 2013, Russian state oil company OAO Rosneft (ROSN.L) completed the takeover of TNK-BP, the third largest oil company in Russia, in two deals totaling $56 billion in cash and stock.

TNK-BP was a 50:50 joint venture formed in 2003 by merging the Russian oil and gas assets of BP as well as the oil and gas assets of Alfa-Access-Renova or AAR, a consortium consisting of a group of four Russian billionaire oligarchs.

RIO is currently trading at $54.49, down $0.13 or 0.24 percent on a volume of 290,869 shares.