Shipment Produced 3 Weeks Ahead of Schedule
Sydney, April 11, 2019 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Australian Bauxite Limited (
ASX:ABX) (ABx, ASX Code ABX) had produced 31,600 tonnes as at Monday 9 April and achieved the contracted tonnage target of 30,000 to 33,000 of cement-grade bauxite 3 weeks before the 1 May 2019 contract date. Grades are better than contract, as usual for ABx shipments to date.
- ABx achieved sale tonnage of 30,000 tonnes 3 weeks ahead of schedule
- Shipment date brought forward
- Additional production for other sales
- Rehabilitation well advanced
Production continues at the Bald Hill Bauxite Project, at least until the end of the week when more than 33,000 tonnes will have been produced.
Trucking has delivered 23,900 tonnes to the port stockpile at Bell Bay and will complete deliveries well before ship arrival.
Shipping plans are now well advanced with a contracted ship targeting an arrival about a week earlier than planned. The ships master and the customer's shipping department are investigating how to achieve a maximum tonnage shipment of 33,000 tonnes, subject to berth and tide conditions at Bell Bay Port during the late stage of loading.
Additional product stockpiles have been achieved, including fertiliser-grade bauxite, cement-grade bauxite and sizeable stockpiles of ALCORE refinery-grade bauxite. A sample of several tonnes of this refinery-grade bauxite will be supplied to the ALCORE Research Centre in Berkeley Vale, Central Coast NSW for refining into Aluminium Fluoride for potential customers to evaluate.
Bald Hill Bauxite Project in Tasmania has the potential to accumulate several year's supply of ALCORE refinery-grade bauxite at marginal cost, should ALCORE Limited require it for a production-plant in Bell Bay, Tasmania.
Rehabilition has been carried out over the past months in accordance with ABx standard practice of reforming the land surface in readiness for pasture seeding in the right seasonal period.
Seasonal Complementation With Binjour Bauxite Project, QLD
Binjour project will be at maximum production during the Queensland Dry Season from April to November. ABx's bauxite mines in Tasmania achieve optimum production in Summer months from November to May. ABx's marketing partner, Rawmin of India has bauxite mines in north-western India that are restricted by the Monsoon months June to September each year.
This bauxite mining and screening operation at Bald Hill in Tasmania has confirmed that coordinated production and shipments from all 3 sets of mines will achieve a reliable year-round delivery to the customer of bauxite at a consistent specification.
All bauxite is gibbsite-rich trihydrate (THA) bauxite with very low content of the monohydrate alumina minerals boehmite and diaspore which require high temperature refining.
These bauxite specifications in Table 1 (see link below) are ideally suited for low-temperature alumina refineries.
To view tables and figures, please visit:
http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/662L3RVL
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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