Rio Tinto Increases Ivanhoe Mines Shareholding

The world's third largest mining conglomerate, Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) has raised it's shareholding of Ivanhoe Mines Ltd, a Canadian mineral exploration and development company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. Ivanhoe Mines is focused is on the Pacific rim where it is in the process of developing several large mines, the principal one being the Oyu Tolgoi Project in Mongolia.

Rio Tinto's increased stake in Ivanhoe Mines has been increased to 35 percent after the automatic conversion of a $350 million credit facility. Rio Tinto had exercised the $350 million convertible credit facility issued to Ivanhoe in 2007, increasing its stake by 5.3 percentage points to 34.9%, buying 40.1 million Ivanhoe shares at US$10 each.

Ivanhoe Mines and Rio Tinto are building the $4.6 billion Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine in Mongolia, which Rio has described as the world’s largest untapped copper and gold deposit, due to start output at the end of 2012.