Rio Tinto appears to have shifted away from its long-held view that China’s crude steel production will peak at around 1 billion mt by the end of the next decade, based on new CEO Jean-Sebastien Jacques’ comments Wednesday.

When asked by S&P Global Platts about the company’s view on Chinese steel, Jacques said it was a “distraction” to worry about what the market might look like in 15 years’ time.

Instead, he said Rio Tinto would focus on the three key value drivers — cost, product mix and capex profile — that would make the company’s products viable in any long-term scenario in China.

This philosophy extended to the miner’s plans for iron ore production in Western Australia, where there now seems to be no hurry to reach the long-term capacity target of 360 million mt/year.

Jacques restated on a call with media Wednesday that Rio Tinto will export 330 million-340 million mt of iron ore in 2017.

He said the miner’s iron ore business was “based on value not volume” and noted the decision to proceed with the Silvergrass project in the Pilbara, announced on Tuesday, was about maintaining the quality of Rio’s Pilbara Blend product.

Jacques noted the stronger steel market in China over the first half of this year but warned that much of the improved activity was the result of the greater availability of credit.

He was cautious about the outlook for H2, using the phrase “challenging and volatile” almost like a mantra to describe market conditions.

But he said Rio Tinto had no issue selling material into China, which accounted for 40-50% of its total business.

Jacques was presenting Rio Tinto’s January-June financial performance, which saw underlying earnings fall 47% year on year to $1.56 billion.

Iron ore production in H1 at 131.3 million mt was up 11% year on year but lower prices resulted in iron ore gross sales revenue falling 10% over the same period to $6.3 billion.

Underlying earnings of $1.7 billion for iron ore in H1 were down 17% from the year before.