Director Shareholding

Rio Tinto PLC
1 March 2002


Our Ref: MW/

Company Annoucements Office
London Stock Exchange
Old Broad Street
London
EC2M 1HP


1 March 2002


Dear Sirs

DIRECTORS' INTERESTS

In May 1998, the shareholders of Rio Tinto plc approved a share based long term
incentive plan, the Mining Companies Comparative Plan (the MCCP).  Under the
rules of the Plan, directors were given conditional awards of shares.  The first
award has now matured and the shares vest in the directors today.  The Company's
performance over the period from 1 January 1998 to 31 December 2001 means that
directors will be entitled to the full amount of shares conditionally awarded in
1998.  The following table sets out the directors' share interests following
today's vesting:-


Name                Number of   Value per share @    Number of shares Interest in        Shareholding
                    shares      close of business 28 retained         conditional awards following vesting
                    vesting     Feb '02                               under the
                                                                      Company's LTIPs
                                                                      following vesting

Sir Robert Wilson   50,692      1422p                Nil              226,396            112,406
R Adams             28,477      1422p                Nil              128,978            54,821
C R H Bull          27,582      1422p                Nil              124,509            42,783
G R Elliott         4,345       1422p                2,607            23,057             28,807
J C A Leslie        21,767      1422p                Nil              97,368             43,150


In addition, each of the above directors are deemed to be interested in 184,572
Rio Tinto plc ordinary shares as potential beneficiaries of the Rio Tinto
Employee Share Ownership Trust.


Yours faithfully

Matthew Whyte
Secretarial Department
020 7753 2317


                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange