Bauxite Resources LTD (BRL) started bauxite mining with an official ground breaking ceremony held on 6 August 2009. BRL obtained their first Extractive Industries Licence (EIL) and Project Management Plan (PMP) from the Shire of Bindoon and quarrying has commenced in an area North of Bindoon.
BRL’s inaugural mine event was attended by representatives of the Western Australian Sate Government, Hon Brian Ellis MLC the Member for Agriculture, Hon Phillip Gardiner MLC the Member for Agricultural Regions, Bindoon Deputy Shire President Judy Tomlinson and Steve Morris from Western Australian Department of Mines and Petroleum.
BRL has entered into ‘trial spot sample’ shipment sales arrangements with several groups as a 1st stage in its ramp up to developing its initial 1million tonnes per annum (mtpa) Direct Shipping Ore (DSO) bauxite business scheduled to commence by first quarter 2010. Ultimately BRL aims to be producing 3mtpa of bauxite as well as downstream value added products.
The Company’s planned spot shipments will represent a new era for DSO from the Darling Range, Western Australia, which is the largest bauxite and alumina producing region in the world, home to four alumina refineries supplying approximately 18% of the world’s alumina which is the feedstock for aluminium smelting.
Exporting DSO bauxite from Western Australia enjoys the benefits of proximity to Asian markets, reduced shipping turnaround as well as the availability of existing rail and port infrastructure at Kwinana and Bunbury.
The DSO of bauxite by BRL will put the Company at the forefront of the rapidly growing trade in bauxite supplies to Asian alumina refineries which rely upon bauxite feedstock. Bauxite imports into China have grown significantly in recent years with China forecast to run out of bauxite within 10 years.
BRL now controls the largest tenement land holding in the Darling Range, Western Australia, for bauxite with over 15,000km2 of ground holdings throughout the south west of Western Australia exceeding the combined Darling Range landholdings of bauxite miners and alumina refinery operators ALCOA and BHP.
The North Bindoon operations will supply the bauxite ore for BRL’s planned Stage One DSO program.