Rio Tinto to reconsider sale process for its Australian aluminium smelter assets

Metal and Mineral giant Rio Tinto is re-considering sale of its aluminium assets at three of its Australian smelters- Tasmania's Bell Bay, Queensland's Boyne and New South Wales' Tomago and is seeking buyers for the same. The dual-listed miner has engaged an investment bank to handle the entire selling operations.

Rio Tinto had tried divesting its aluminium assets several times previously, but this time, the desire seems even greater under the leadership of new chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques.

According to the company sources, the Australasian aluminium division of the miner has a book value of $US1.2 billion. While pinpointing logical buyers isn't easy - sources said Alcoa is unlikely to be interested.

Aluminium prices globally have been hovering around their lows in recent years, and any smelters outside China, where cost of production is on the higher side, are challenged.

The Australian aluminium smelters are not the only ones running at loss; Rio also has some poorly performing smelters in Scotland, Oman, New Zealand and France, and the company plans to put all of those up for sale some time down the line.

Rio owns its best smelters in Canada where there are captive hydro-electric plants to enable the smelters produce aluminium at low energy costs.

The company, as per industry reports, would like to keep the Canadian aluminium assets, only, especially the flagship Kitimat smelter, which has been expanded recently at significant cost and is expected to churn out the white metal at the lowest docile cost curve.

Grapevine has it that buyers are lining up for Kitimat smelter but Rio has a different incentive planned for them if they opt to make a buying offer for its other aluminium assets in high cost jurisdictions. They could get Rio's alumina refineries which would provide them a buffer against volatile raw material prices that play critical in aluminium production.

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