Chairman's Address to Shareholders
Sydney, May 28, 2012 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Australian Bauxite Limited (
ASX:ABZ) are pleased to provide the Chairman's Address to Shareholders at the 2012 Annual General Meeting held today.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Australian Bauxite Limited's 2012 Annual General Meeting. This is my first year as Chairman, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank and acknowledge Deputy Chairman Peter Meer's prior work as Chairman since the Company's successful IPO in December 2009. On behalf of the Shareholders, Board and staff, I would also thank Vincent Tan, who is stepping down from the Board today, for his important role in the creation of the Company.
Last year Australian Bauxite achieved several significant and ambitious objectives, and I am pleased to report on the Company's positive progress during this year. Reflecting on last year, it is remarkable that Australian Bauxite's declared bauxite resources doubled to 86 million tonnes (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) during that period. Of perhaps even more significance is that last year also heralded the Company's identification of two potentially economic projects.
The first and most advanced is located in the Goulburn and Taralga area of southern New South Wales, which I will expand on shortly. In early February this year, the Company announced the discovery of a 33 metre thick high-grade bauxite intersection at Taralga - possibly one of the thickest bauxite intersections ever discovered in Australia. Current bauxite resources at Taralga total 25 million tonnes(2) and the 2012 resource upgrade is well underway.
The second project identified is the Binjour project, situated 100km inland from Bundaberg Port in central Queensland. In October, a 16.8 million tonnes maiden resource was declared at the Binjour Plateau(4) that confirmed the discovery of a significant bauxite deposit which included bauxite of outstandingly high quality.
Despite being in only its fourth year of operation, Australian Bauxite is working on project development and is no longer just a bauxite explorer. Nevertheless, Australian Bauxite is still conducting an aggressive exploration program, and expanding its tenement holdings to ensure it controls the core of the Eastern Australian Bauxite Province. The company currently owns 37 astutely selected tenements covering 8,582 square kilometres.
Australian Bauxite's high success rate in locating economic bauxite is the direct result of sophisticated analysis based on the increasing expertise and knowledge base of its geological team.
Australian Bauxite is pleased to also be firmly repositioned as an emerging bauxite-development company. In preparation for this, Australian Bauxite expanded its team late last year when it warmly welcomed senior mining engineer Drago Panich to become its new Goulburn Bauxite Project Manager. Australian Bauxite's move towards project development began in earnest when it announced, that in conjunction with the Marubeni Group, it was conducting a $1.5 million dollar pre-feasibility study to assess the best strategy to progress the Goulburn Bauxite Project. At the present time, the pre-feasibility study has established that economic project investments are feasible at low capital costs, and, subject to completion of a larger project case, we anticipate releasing the report results shortly. However, the report contains a considerable amount of commercial-in-confidence information (eg. precise costs of production) that will not be released publicly as it would be unwise to do so prior to conclusion of detailed negotiations with potential offtake customers which are already underway.
As Australian Bauxite continues working on project development, it is worth noting that growth in bauxite demand and bauxite prices has been strong over the past seven years. We note that since 2005 prices in bauxite imported to China have risen from US$27 per tonne, to more than US$70 per tonne. In the past year, China's bauxite imports increased by 50% and currently exceed 50 million tonnes per year. Furthermore China's reliance on Indonesia's bauxite is currently being somewhat challenged by the Indonesian Government's decisions to reduce and heavily tax bauxite exports from Indonesia as Indonesia develops its own aluminium industry. Australia must develop new bauxite projects and we believe Australian Bauxite Limited is ideally positioned to be the first new bauxite project in Australia for several decades.
In summary, the Director's anticipate that high quality Australian bauxite will become increasingly attractive to overseas markets. We are confident that Australian Bauxite is very well positioned to take advantage of substantial future export opportunities.
In closing, I would like to thank the Board, and in particular Ian Levy and his senior management team, staff and consultants for their remarkable work over the past 12 months. Your Directors' once again look forward to the future year with confidence that Australian Bauxite will deliver yet another year high achievement.
Hon. John Dawkins AO
Chairman
(1) 09/05/2012 ASX Inverell Resource Grade Improvement
(2) 12/05/2011 ASX Taralga Bauxite Resource Doubled to 25 Million Tonnes
(3) 15/08/2011 ASX Guyra Maiden Resource (6 Million Tonnes)
(4) 12/10/2011 ASX Binjour Maiden Resource (17 Million Tonnes)
(5) 02/09/2010 ASX Inverell JORC Resource Update (38 Million Tonnes)
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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