Bell Bay in sights of British mogul

RIO Tinto is in talks with British billionaire Sanjeev Gupta — who this year bought Arrium and its Whyalla steelworks from administrators — to sell its Australian and New Zealand aluminium assets, including Tasmania’s Bell Bay.

It is understood Mr Gupta, who is living in Sydney, plans to visit some of the assets this week to decide whether to make a bid.

The assets include stakes in the Boyne aluminium smelter at Gladstone in Queensland, the Tomago smelter in the Hunter Valley as well as the Bell Bay smelter.

Rio’s Pacific Aluminium division, which analysts have valued at up to $US1 billion ($A1.28 billion), also owns the Gladstone power station and a majority stake in the New Zealand Aluminium Smelters business.

The division includes New Zealand’s only aluminium smelter, at Tiwai Point in Southland.

Rio also owns two alumina refineries in Queensland — QAL and Yarwun — and bauxite mines at Weipa in that state and Gove in the Northern Territory, but these are not part of discussions.

In 2013, Rio made plans to float its Australian and New Zealand refineries and smelters as Pacific Aluminium, under current Newcrest chief Sandeep Biswas.

It abandoned those plans as it appeared it would not deliver enough of a return to Rio.

The assets have been unofficially up for sale and prospec- tive buyers have looked at them.

Under Jean-Sebastien Jacques, appointed Rio chief last year, there is a stronger push to sell the assets and a turnaround in aluminium prices to near six-year highs could help drive a higher price.

On the flip side, the most expensive input in aluminium smelting is the cost of electricity.

It was reported in August that Swiss commodities trading titan Glencore and US group Century Aluminium were circling the assets.