Rio Tinto Ltd intends to sell some of the smelters and refineries it picked up during its badly received acquisition of Canada's Alcan, The Australian reports.
The mining giant told the paper that the asset sales - at appropriate prices - would sit alongside cost-cuts, reaping more from existing assets and investing more in new assets.
To date, Rio has divested two-thirds of the assets it seeks to offload from the 2007 acquisition, with some $US5 billion left to go.
"We need to do further business improvement," Rio chief financial officer Guy Elliot told the paper.
"That doesn't just mean cutting costs, it means extracting more, sweating the assets harder, getting more throughput out of the same kit."
Mr Elliott added Alcan's first substantial capital spending since being taken over by Rio Tinto for $38 billion in 2007 was "on the horizon".
The paper added that the two most likely options for capital projects are the $2 billion-plus expansion of the Kitimat smelter in British Columbia and the AP5X technology pilot plant planned for Quebec.
At 1015 AEDT, the official market opening, Rio was up 0.24 per cent to $87.60.
（Source from Business Spectator）
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