HOUSTON, March 24 (Reuters) - Rio Tinto expects

to open Arizona's Resolution Copper mine by the mid-2030s, a

senior executive of the miner told Reuters on Tuesday.

The Anglo-Australian mining giant this month gained control

of acreage needed to build one of the world's largest copper

mines after a years-long court fight.

The company has now begun a $500 million drilling campaign

to explore the 30% of the deposit it previously could not

access. That research will help the company decide its

production timeline, but first copper is expected within a

decade.

"We are quite committed to bringing copper on as quickly as

we can," Katie Jackson, head of Rio's copper business, told

Reuters on the sidelines of the CERAWeek by S&P Global

conference in Houston. "This is something we want to do in the

early to mid 2030s."

Rio operates Utah's Kennecott copper mine and smelter, with

all of its production consumed inside the country. The only

other U.S. copper smelter is operated by Freeport-McMoRan ( FCX )

.