Rio sells more assets as fresh bid talk swirls

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Rio Tinto (RIO.AX), fighting a takeover from BHP Billiton (BHP.AX), said on Thursday it was about a quarter of the way through a plan to sell $10 billion (5 billion pounds) in assets this year to offset some of the $39 billion it paid for the Canadian aluminium maker Alcan.

Rio Tinto (RIO.L) said it had completed the sale of its 70.3 percent interest in the Greens Creek gold mine in Alaska to an affiliate of Hecla Mining Co (HL.N) for $700 million in cash and $50 million in Hecla stock.

"Rio Tinto has achieved close to one quarter of its target of realising asset sales of US$10 billion in 2008," the company said.

Rio's Australian stock rose nearly 5 percent A$147.01 on Thursday after its London shares had raced 3.8 percent higher to a record 6,238 pence on Wednesday, amid speculation that BHP might raise its offer of 3.4 shares for every Rio share to four shares.

Rio's chief executive, Tom Albanese, has long argued BHP's offer was way under what his company was worth.

In November, Albanese said Rio's U.S. energy coal unit, talc and borates businesses, Alcan's engineered products and packaging divisions, the Northparkes copper mine in Australia and Rio's Sweetwater and Kintyre uranium assets were on the block.

Rio hopes to sell a further $5 billion in assets after 2008.

Rio earlier this year sold its interest in the Cortez gold mine in Nevada for $1.695 billion in cash along with certain retained contingent royalty interests.

(Reporting by James Regan)