After its unsuccessful bid for a majority stake in Riversdale Mining, Australian mining giant Rio Tinto is reportedly in talks to acquire shares of Brazil’s Cia Siderurgica Nacional, reported The Australian. Rio Tinto had offered AU$3.9 billion for Riversdale, aiming to bolster its coking coal assets with an extensive deposit in Mozambique.

According to the Australian, two people familiar with the situation revealed that Rio Tinto is currently negotiating to buy shares from the Brazilian steel producer.

Siderurgica Nacional had earlier this year increased its stake in Riversdale to 19.9 per cent. The Anglo-Australian miner said it had raised its interest in Riversdale and received acceptances that would give it a 41.04 per cent stake, short of the more than 50 per cent threshold Rio had set for a sweetened offer of $16.50 a share by a late-Monday deadline, reported The Australian.

In a letter addressed to the ASX, Rio Tinto, through its legal department, said it is in talks with a major shareholder in the coal company to secure a sufficient number of shares to gain it a majority stake. Trading in Riversdale shares has been halted. However, The Australian said a spokeswoman for Rio Tinto confirmed that the company remained hopeful its takeover offer would be successful. An acquisition of a majority stake in Brazil’s Cia Siderurgica Nacional will give Rio Tinto an outright majority in Riversdale mining.

Should the acquisition of Cia Siderurgica Nacional go through, it would mark the first such major investment for Rio Tinto since its ill-timed $US38 billion takeover of Canadian aluminum producer Alcan in 2007 and would have landed it control of two major developing coking coal projects in an area of Mozambique that continues to attract interest from mining and steel companies around the world, reported The Australian.

However, The Australian indicated that the success of the deal rests in large part on Riversdale’s two largest shareholders, two steel producers that together own a 47 per cent stake but have remained quiet since the offer was first made in December. The offer has been extended four times and was earlier this month lifted from $16. Under the terms previously set out by Rio, the offer should revert to the earlier price and is set to close April 6.

The Brazilian firm owns 19.9% of Riversdale. India’s Tata Steel owns 27.1% and both companies have recently been upping their Riversdale investments to gain positions of power in negotiating for coking coal contracts.