ABx Maiden Shipment Locked and Loaded
Sydney, April 28, 2016 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Australian Bauxite Limited (ABx)(
ASX:ABX) maiden shipment of 5,557 tonnes of cement-grade bauxite has been loaded overnight and the ship has left Bell Bay Port in northern Tasmania, thus concluding the first sale of bauxite from ABx's Bald Hill mine - the first new bauxite project in Australia for more than 35 years.
The customer is seeking a second, larger shipment of 30,000 to 40,000 tonnes once the large stockpile warehouse in the receiving port is approved and ready to receive bauxite. This is planned to occur within 2 months. The sale price is satisfactorily profitable but commercial-in-confidence.
ABx's Logistics Manager, Paul Glover commented; "The bauxite is in perfect condition for our bauxite cement customer. It is even grained, dry, dust-free and exceptionally clean due to rigorous processing by Stornoway contractors at Bald Hill mine, careful transport pit-to-port by TasRail and professional port handling by QUBE Ports. This, combined with excellent chemistry makes our bauxite ideal for a range of customers, several of which have recently requested samples from us for testing".
ABx's Chief Operating Officer, Leon Hawker commented; "In 2014, ABx had 3 marketing plans A, B & C. Plans A & B were to sell metallurgical bauxite to the alumina refineries in China and India but in November 2015, both markets closed to new entrants. Fortunately ABx also developed Plan C in 2014 to sell into the Cement and Fertiliser industries. This involved careful testwork to achieve the special standards required by each customer and ABx's bauxite proved itself to be suitable for a wide range of applications. We will further enhance the product qualities via our TasTech technology".
ABx continues with its plan to use sales revenues, rather than capital raisings to fund the company's growth, including R&D into TasTech technology which allows ABx to separate Tasmanian bauxite into the 3 constituent product-types (see Figures 6 & 7):
1. High grade, ultra-cleaned metallurgical-grade bauxite for the aluminium industry;
2. Cement-grade bauxite for the manufacture of certified, high specification cement; and,
3. Fertiliser-grade bauxite for the fertiliser industry.
Due to the rapid deterioration of the metallurgical bauxite market, ABx has taken steps since December to conserve cash until its balance sheet strengthens from sales and other income, including a temporary suspension of production and haulage of bauxite products from its Bald Hill Bauxite Project at Campbell Town, Tasmania.
Once additional sales contracts are finalised, ABx and its contractors can reopen the Bald Hill Bauxite Project within two weeks.
Rehabilitation and sales of bauxite from existing stockpiles at the mine will continue and the mine can quickly ramp-up bauxite production without delay.
To view tables and figures, please visit:
http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/M46BLS7P
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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