Rio Tinto announced on January 13 that it has reached a new agreement with Meridian Energy for power supply, which will enable the Tiwai Point aluminum smelter in New Zealand to continue operations until December 31, 2024.
In July 2020, Rio Tinto announced that it would gradually close the operations at the Tiwai Point aluminum smelter before August 2021, due to high costs of energy and transportation.