According to a report from The Australian, US-based Century Aluminium and Glencore are eying Rio Tinto’s Pacific Aluminium business, which is up for sale through Deutsche Bank at an estimated cost of $US1 billion ($1.3bn).

The Pacific division owns the Bell Bay Aluminium smelter in Tasmania and Boyne smelter 20km south of Gladstone on the central Queensland coast in Australia. It also owns the Tomago Aluminium smelter and a majority stake in the New Zealand’s Tiwai Point aluminium smelter in Southland. Century Aluminium has primary aluminium facilities in the US and Iceland and has been running under capacity due to lower aluminium prices in last two years.

Deutsche bank is currently working on Rio’s aluminium assets sale. The process is expected to start in October. Rio announced its intention of spinning off its aluminium business as early as in 2013 as a separate business but shelved the plan in the aftermath of its Alcan fiasco.

Mick Davis’s company, X2, reportedly looked at the businesses — along with Rio’s Queensland coalmine, but it never turned into an offer. Now with the improving aluminium prices, the assets seem to be back to sale. Both three-month aluminium futures on the LME and Shanghai aluminium futures have hit a high last week in three years and five years. This was primarily driven by China’s plan to cut down aluminium capacity which has generated positive market sentiments in the global market.