Alcore Economic Assessment
Sydney, Nov 18, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Australian Bauxite Limited (
ASX:ABX) (A7B:FRA) provides the following economic assessment of its 89% owned subsidiary ALCORE Limited (Alcore) and in particular work being undertaken to process aluminium fluoride (AlF3) by Alcore (AlF3 Project).
- AlF3 is a strategically important mineral because it is an essential ingredient for aluminium smelting. It is also being investigated for advanced lithium-ion batteries
- Australasian aluminium smelters currently rely entirely on imported AlF3
- AlF3 imports by Australasian smelters from China alone in the last 12 months totalled more than 26,000 tonnes averaging US$1,266 per tonne
- Alcore plans to be the first domestic producer of AlF3 which will diversify and increase security of supply for Australasian smelters and enable export to other smelters worldwide
- The Alcore process is the world's first production of AlF3 from the recycling of aluminium smelter waste and from ABx's gibbsite-rich clean bauxite
- Alcore is routinely producing AlF3 of commercial composition and bulk density in the laboratory
- Alcore uses the aluminium-related parts of the CORE Technology (patent application)
Updated economic assessment
According to Roskill, a respected industry analysis company, in 2019:
- The operating cost of most global AlF3 production was between US$1,000/t and US$1,500/t
- 75% of existing commercial AlF3 production costs are raw materials, mainly fluorspar and aluminium hydroxide.
The Alcore process uses lower cost raw materials, offering a significant reduction in operating cost:
- Fluorine from aluminium smelter waste, instead of from purchased fluorspar
- Aluminium from bauxite or aluminium smelter waste, instead of purchased aluminium hydroxide
Alcore's costs: The cost advantage of fluorine from aluminium smelter waste allows Alcore to begin low-risk commercial production, initially from aluminium hydroxide, before expanding to processing bauxite or aluminium-rich smelter waste, which reduces costs but is not essential in early years of production to make the project attractive.
The operating cost range for Alcore's early years of production is estimated to be US$800-$950 per tonne of AlF3, based on the likely costs of raw materials for a plant in Bell Bay, northern Tasmania. This will place Alcore in the lowest cost quartile of global production.
The cost is based on purchased aluminium hydroxide and recycled aluminium smelter waste as the source of fluorine. Future cost reductions from using bauxite or aluminium-rich smelter waste are upsides.
Prices: The median long-term AlF3 price is US$1,175/t and market prices are currently near this value (see Figure 1*). This provides an attractive operating margin for Alcore.
The Alcore process predominantly uses standard processing equipment, minimising the cost and risk of development.
Current Alcore activities
1. Conducting engineering validation, which is likely to include a pilot plant for critical process steps, to:
- Confirm process and product performance at a larger scale
- Produce larger samples for evaluation by aluminium smelters
2. Conducting process verification experiments in the laboratory to:
- Optimise process conditions to ensure that required physical properties of AlF3 are consistently achieved
- Produce AlF3 from bauxite and aluminium smelter waste of equivalent quality to that produced from aluminium hydroxide
- Optimise the recovery of fluorine from aluminium smelter waste, including the separation and recovery of by-products with potential commercial value
Commercial
- Market prices for AlF3 are mainly determined by the Chinese export price set on the basis of freeon-board in Chinese Ports, which is published daily and monthly by China Customs. The median long term AlF3 price is US$1,175/t (see Figure 1).
- Alcore plans to be the domestic first producer of AlF3, at an industrial site in Bell Bay, northern Tasmania; an industrial precinct that currently has an aluminium smelter, a manganese smelter, an aluminium powder plant, a skilled workforce and experienced engineering firms.
- Alcore plans to commence with a production module of 10,000 tonnes of AlF3 per year, and steadily construct up to five production modules of the same size, for a total of up to 50,000 tonnes of AlF3 per year. This represents a small percentage of the 1.5 million tonne global market for AlF3.
Government & Industry
Discussions continue with governments, agencies and with major companies in the aluminium industry. Alcore considers AlF3 to be a strategically important mineral product.
Comment: Alcore CEO, Mark Cooksey commented: "For the process selected for our first 10,000 tonnes/year production module, we have demonstrated all of the key requirements at the laboratory scale. The updated economic assessment confirms that this is a very attractive project. We are accelerating the engineering validation for the first production module."
*To view tables and figures, please visit:
https://abnnewswire.net/lnk/OS2E0683
About ABx Group Limited
ABx Group Limited (ABx) (ASX:ABX) started as a bauxite miner in Tasmania in 2014 & controls the Eastern Australian Bauxite Province. In 2020 to 2023, ABx also discovered Australia’s only true ionic adsorption clay Rare Earth Elements resource at Deep Leads in pine plantations 40km west of Launceston with a JORC-compliant resource of 89 million tonnes from only 29% of the mineralised outline, averaging 844 ppm total rare earth oxides that is the most enriched in the critically important rare earths, Dy and Tb, of any Australian REE deposit.
ABx has also developed a proprietary technology to produce fluorine chemicals from an aluminium smelter waste product and return the fluorine back into the smelters, thus reducing reliance on imported aluminium fluoride.
ABx has committed a large proportion of its expenditure into Research and Development and has found ways to capitalise on the main strengths of its bauxite type which is very clean, free of all deleterious elements and can be separated into different product streams using physical, chemical and geophysical methods. It has produced and marketed specialist bauxite products for the manufacturers of fertiliser, cement with high late strength for major infrastructure such as bridges and is in the advanced stages of approvals for production of metallurgical bauxite from its Binjour Bauxite deposit with JORC-compliant resources of 37 million tonnes of bauxite, in a joint development with a Chinese-focussed Australian trading company Good Importing International.
ABx is also preparing to produce fertiliser grade and cement grade bauxite from its DL130 bauxite quarry in northern Tasmania, 40km west of Launceston. This quarry is sited in the middle of the large Deep Leads REE deposit and may one day be a site for heap leaching of the REE using a low-cost, benign leachate with the same acidity as apple juice or tea.
ABx endorses best practices on agricultural land, strives to leave land and environment better than we find it. We only operate where welcomed.
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