Rio Tinto Ltd (ASX: RIO) shares are on course to end the week on a positive note.
In late trade, the mining giant's shares are up over 2% to $109.86.
Can Rio Tinto shares keep rising?
The good news is that analysts at Goldman Sachs believe the miner's shares can keep rising from here.
According to a note, the broker has retained its conviction buy rating and $136.10 price target on the miner's shares.
Based on the current Rio Tinto share price, this implies potential upside of 24% for investors. In addition, the broker expects Rio Tinto shares to provide dividend yields of 7.6% in FY 2023 and 6.5% in FY 2024.
What did the broker say?
The broker has just toured the Arizona laramide copper belt, visiting several mines and projects including Rio Tinto's Resolution mine site near the town of Superior.
Goldman believes that the next phase of underground development at Resolution could potentially begin in 2024, with possible first copper production probably around 2030-2032. It also highlights that there should be some synergies with the company's Kennecott operation in Utah, including sending copper concentrate by rail to the Kennecott smelter.
While this is still some way off, it is still good news given how miners are constantly looking for the next production opportunity as older mines become depleted. Goldman also highlights that this will mean it doesn't have to spend big on M&A. The broker commented:
Given Resolution permitting could potentially be close and could be a large capex (RIO share US$4-5bn) greenfield project that is not in our base case, or unlikely in consensus forecasts, we believe RIO does not need large scale copper M&A to grow. Resolution won't be an easy mine to develop (deep, wet and hot), but RIO has plenty of block caving expertise with Oyu Tolgoi (OT) in Mongolia, where the OT project team could in theory roll onto Resolution in 2024.
