Global mining firm Rio Tinto Ltd nears its goal of acquiring Africa-focused collier Riversdale Mining Ltd following the announcement on Thursday by Indian consortium International Coal Ventures Ltd (ICVL) to drop its planned rival proposal on the mining giant's $3.9 billion takeover bid.

Earlier this week, Riversdale board of directors unanimously recommended Rio Tinto's proposal to its shareholders, further strengthening the possibility of a takeover by the world's second largest resource company.

For a time, a bidding war was anticipated by the market but this was quashed by ICVL's official statement on Thursday, revealing that consideration for an offer submission has been dumped by the group, with Coal India chair Partha Bhattacharyya reasoning that "we did not think it was an appropriate case to bid higher than Rio's offer."

The decision, however, will not stop India from efforts of securing coal assets in other countries as Bhattacharyya stressed that "you should see some action in the next couple of months."

Analysts said that had ICVL decided to purse its plan of pushing forward a rival bid, the consortium would have need to dangle a proposal that would top Rio Tinto's offer of $16 per share.

To attract Riversdale's shareholders, experts said that ICVL would need to toss at least $18 per share, en route to a maximum value offer of $4.9 billion but consortium head CS Verma said in a statement that "we discussed in detail pricing scenario, future outlook, resources available, and took a conscious decision not to bid."

Meanwhile, following that floods that effectively halted its Australian mining activities, the company said on Friday that it would resume full operations in the eastern part of the country within this month as Rio Tinto chair Jan du Plessis told reporters in London that "not everything is back to normal, but it's getting back to normal."