Rio Tinto beats iron ore guidance Rio produced 66.5 million tonnes from its Pilbara operations in the December quarter. Rio Tinto has beaten guidance on its two most important commodities for 2013, putting a positive end on a year of significant difficulties for the global miner. Thursday morning's release of the December-quarter and full-year results comes almost exactly one year after Sam Walsh took charge at Rio, following Tom Albanese's sacking on January 17, 2013. Despite the challenging start to the year, the mining side of the business appears to be in good shape, with Rio producing 266 million tonnes for the year, which was marginally better than the 265 million tonnes promised. The iron ore result would have been even better had cyclones in Western Australia during the last few days of December not caused several days of work to be lost. Rio produced 66.5 million tonnes from its Pilbara operations in the December quarter, which was slightly below analyst estimates. Some of that production belongs to joint venture partners like Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting, meaning Rio's share of Pilbara production was 53.2 million tonnes for the quarter. A consensus of analysts on Bloomberg were expecting that number to be 55.7 million tonnes. Copper is Rio Tinto's second most important commodity behind iron ore, and the copper division also beat the revised guidance that was set after a wall slide at the Bingham Canyon mine in Utah back in April. Mr Walsh described the results as "excellent"" and a sign that Rio was delivering on its commitments. Investors have also been wanting to see Rio Tinto cut costs and divest non core assets, and Mr Walsh said Rio had sold $US3.5 billion worth of non core assets during 2013. Rio Tinto shares have drifted lower since being above $68 at the turn of the year, and were fetching $64.24 on Wednesday. The company's full year financial results will be delivered in February.