Rio Tinto Ltd
(ASX:RIO) is reportedly in talks with Russia’s state-owned Alrosa, a diamond-miner looking to sell a 49 per cent stake in its northern Severalmaz project to Rio Tinto for around $400 million.
Alrosa plans to sells Rio Tinto 50 per cent minus one share of Severalmaz for over a little over $250 million.
The purchase will then require Rio to invest around $135 million to bring the company up to full mining capacity, projected at 2 million carats in 2015.
For the half year ended 30 June 2010, Rio reported a net profit of $7.3 billion.
