JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Lightweight metals manufacturer Alcoa is celebrating its first shipment of Western Australia bauxite as part of an export trial approved by the state government last year.
Perth-based Alcoa Mining president Garret Dixon noted that the milestone shipment – a 47 000 t parcel of bauxite bound for an alumina refinery in China – supported the company’s strategy to grow its third-party bauxite business and complemented Alcoa’s mining activities, which supplied bauxite to its Western Australian alumina refineries.
“Alcoa operates the world’s largest integrated bauxite and refining system here in Western Australia,” said Dixon, adding that, for over 53 years, Alcoa had established sustainable mining practices to feed the company’s three alumina refineries at Kwinana, Pinjarra and Wagerup.
“Bauxite exports provide the opportunity to strengthen our business by creating an additional revenue stream. They will help optimise the value of our Darling Range mineral lease for the company and the state without impacting the life of our [Western Australia] refineries,” said Dixon.
The bauxite shipment out of Western Australia marked another important step in Alcoa’s global strategy to increase its share of the growing third-party bauxite sales market.
In April, US-based Alcoa announced that it had signed multiple supply contracts valued at more than $350-million over the next two years for bauxite sourced from three of its mines in Guinea and Brazil.
Alcoa is the world’s largest bauxite miner, with 45.3-million bone dry metric tons of production in 2015. The group had ownership interests in seven active bauxite mines globally, four of which were operated by the company. These mines, including the Huntly and Willowdale mines in Western Australia, were strategically located near key Atlantic and Pacific markets.