(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-02-08 14:27

China Shenhua Energy and China Investment Corp have talked with Australia's third largest iron ore mine company to buy its stake worth $2 billion, an insider with China Shenhua was quoted as saying.

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The plan to buy 15.85 percent of Australia's Fortescue Metals (FMG) was still at an early stage, the anonymous source from China's largest coal producer told Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post.

FMG will use the capital for mine exploitation, said the source.

Harbinger Capital, FMG's second-largest shareholder, may sell its stake to China investment and Shenhua, according to an earlier report by the South China Morning Post. Fortescue founder John Andrew Forrest is the biggest owner of the company, with 35.97 percent.

FMG is the world's fourth largest iron ore producer.

The likely bid for Fortescue came after Friday's announcement by another State-owned resources company, Aluminium Corporation of China Ltd (Chinalco), the country's largest aluminum company, which acquired a 12-percent stake in British mining giant Rio Tinto PLC along with US Alcoa Inc.