HispanicBusiness

Rio Tinto Ltd. on Tuesday hung a For Sale sign on its diamond mining interests in Australia, Zimbabwe, Canada and India.

"We have a valuable, high-quality diamonds business, but given its scale we are reviewing whether we can create more value through a different ownership structure," Rio's diamonds spokesman Harry Kenyon-Slaney said in a statement.

Rio's move comes five months after fellow Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP Billiton put its Ekati diamond mine in Canada up for sale.

Kenyon-Slaney said diamond mining was a good business but no longer a good fit with a company that makes most of its money in iron ore.

It was at Rio's Argyle mine in Australia's west that the biggest-ever pink diamond was extracted earlier this year.

Argyle, which has been going for 26 years, is currently being revamped from an open-pit mine to an underground mine.

Rio is looking to sell the combined mining interests on sale for over 1 billion Australian dollars (1.05 billion U.S. dollars).

Rio shares, which opened the day at 64.25 Australian dollars, closed the session at 64.10 Australian dollars.