Despite recent reports that Rio is ready to move on M&A opportunities, chairman Jan du Plessis and CEO Sam Walsh said it wasn’t high on the priorities list.

“No company should ever say they’re not considering acquisitions – it’s silly,” du Plessis told reporters following the company’s annual general meeting last week.

“You should constantly review your portfolio, of course you should never exclude acquisitions.

“But, to be honest, is that occupying much of Sam or my brainpower at the moment? No.”

Walsh said Rio had an M&A team that was looking at every opportunity.

“The issue is if you look at what’s happening in the market at the moment, there are in fact, a lot of distressed assets that people are saying ‘well that’s an opportunity’,” he said.

“You need to recognise that the asset needs to be right, it needs to be the right mix, it needs to be the right value, the right price, the right ore grade and the right synergies to make that an attractive proposal for us.

“Whether they’re distressed assets because they are high cost, whether they’re distressed assets because they’re low quality, whether they’re distressed assets because they have inadequate infrastructure or don’t meet our development plans, quite frankly, they’re not going to interest us.”

According to du Plessis, the company was constantly reviewing its portfolio.

“The job is never done – many things in life are like that,” he said.

“Seriously, there’s a case for saying that groups like Rio should permanently look at the portfolio and I would actually say, the day we think ‘this is perfect’, then we probably have a problem.”

Rio has divested $US17.5 billion worth of assets over the past five years and wouldn’t rule out further sales.

Walsh said the company occasionally receives approaches from parties interested in Rio’s assets.

“We will always look at that, we’ll always continue to consider offers that people will make to us,” he said.

“So in that context, yes, there could be things that we might divest in the future, but it’s all about value, it’s all about ensuring that where we divest, somebody is valuing something at a greater value than us, because of synergies or because of some other view of the market, or what have you.”

Despite BHP Billiton receiving overwhelming support for its South32 spin-off, du Plessis ruled out a similar move for Rio.

“BHP is a good company, they’ve got good people, I respect what they do. We wish South32 the best,” he said.

“I think in some circumstances spin-offs can be very effective in creating value, in creating a more efficient organisation.

“I can say to you, categorically, at Rio Tinto, we are not considering spinning off any of our assets.”

On Rio’s growth projects, the Silvergrass and Koodaideri iron ore mines remain off the table for now.

Rio is working on the final feasibility study for the South of Embley bauxite project in Queensland.

“South of Embley – this is a good project, in fact, it’s one of the best projects that we have,” Walsh said.

“I would expect the project would come to the board late this year.”

The Simandou iron ore project in Guinea has been delayed by the ebola outbreak and Walsh said the company was working on an extension of the timeframe with the government.

In Mongolia, discussions with the government over the stalled Oyu Tolgoi underground were progressing.

“I again stressed while I was there that we don’t want to rush anything just for the sake of doing a deal, because it’s got to be sustainable, it’s got to stand the test of time and that’s seriously important,” Walsh said.

“But we are narrowing down on the issues and I am hopeful that at the appropriate time for all involved that we will be able to bring that project into the board.”

Walsh said the massive Resolution copper project was at least 6-8 years away due to the lengthy US approvals process.