By Chuin-Wei Yap

BEIJING (MarketWatch) -- Rio Tinto Plc , the world's second-largest iron ore miner, has reached official agreements with Asian steel mills excluding those in China, a company spokesman said Friday.

"I can confirm we have agreements with non-China Asian steelmakers" for the April-June quarter, Gervase Greene told Dow Jones Newswires.

The official agreements settle what were previously a string of tentative deals for price increases, and a shift to term pricing for the raw material to a quarterly basis from an annual system.

Greene declined to comment on specific prices.

Market sources and analysts widely believe that global miners have secured price increases that would roughly double last year's benchmark deals with Asian mills.

Japan's Nikkei reported Thursday that Japanese steelmakers have reached official agreements with global miners. The China Iron and Steel Association and Chinese steelmakers declined to comment.

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