The cost-focused mining house recently axed its energy division which triggered the redundancy of its chief executive Kenyon-Slaney. Rio’s copper division chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques ended up winning this role for the subsequently created copper and coal product group.

Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis director of Australasia energy finance studies, Tim Buckley, who is also known as the co-founder and managing director of renewable energy-focused Arkx Investment Management, found the news encouraging.

“As a top global energy executive who had tirelessly maintained the view that the world cannot afford to reduce its dependence on coal, his exit speaks volumes,” Buckley wrote for the IEEFA.

“Rio’s decision to part ways with Kenyon-Slaney represents a major shift in strategy by one of the world’s largest coal miners and in essence by the industry itself.

“Kenyon-Slaney was appointed chairman of the World Coal Association in May 2014 and a director of the Coal Industry Advisory Board to the International Energy Agency in 2013. That board has been stacked traditionally with coal and coal-fired-utility representatives – hence why we think the IEA has resisted any suggestion that coal and nuclear are not key to future electricity systems globally. His diminishment is a diminishment for the coal industry in general.”