Projects

Aurukun Bauxite and Alumina Project

Status
EIS active

The Queensland Government is seeking to optimise the economic, social and financial outcomes from the development of the Aurukun bauxite and kaolin mineral resource for the benefit of the state and the local region, including local indigenous communities.

The government has signed a development agreement with the Aluminium Corporation of China (Chalco) to mine the resource at Arukun and establish new facilities to process the minerals.

There are two developments within this project:

If the Aurukun Bauxite and Alumina project proceeds, it will include a bauxite mine at Aurukun and a alumina refinery and port facilities at Abbot Point near Bowen. This will represent the biggest single investment in Queensland involving an estimated construction workforce of 2300 over a three-year construction period and a direct operational workforce of 600 for regional Queensland.

Traditional owners

The mine site is located at Aurukun on land which is designated as ‘Restricted Area 315’ (RA315) under the Mineral Resources Regulation 2003. At Aurukun the Wik and Wik Way peoples are the traditional owners of this land. The government, Chalco, the Aurukun Shire Council and the native title holders of the land have now signed an Indigenous land use agreement for the feasibility stage of the project to deliver sustainable economic and social benefits to the Aurukun community.

Size of the resource

A substantial amount of exploration and testing has been done since the mid 1950s. This has concluded that the resource contained 439 million tonnes of in-situ bauxite, giving 325 million tonnes of beneficiated bauxite at 53.6% Al2O3 and 7.4% reactive silica.

Location

The Aurukun resource area is situated in western Cape York, north Queensland, Australia, near the coast at approximately 13 degrees south latitude. It measures about 85km from north to south and 20 to 30km from east to west. The East Coast Alumina Refinery and port facility will be located in the Abbot State development Area near Bowen.

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Background and resources

The Aurukun bauxite and kaolin prospect was formerly held under the mining lease ML7032. After the cancellation of this tenement the ground is now held open under the Restricted Area 315 (RA315). The subject area has previously been explored under three different authorities to prospect none of which exactly matched the boundaries of ML7032. These authorities to prospect were 59M (in 1956), 320M (1966) and 493M (1968).

ML7032 was granted over the resource to the 'Aurukun Associates' under the Aurukun Associates Agreement Act 1975 (AAA). A requirement of the Act was that the 'Aurukun Associates', of which Pechiney (now Alcan) is the sole remaining partner, commence construction of an aluminium refinery by 31 December 1983. Although this deadline was subsequently extended to 31 December 1988, no such refinery was commenced.

The government's initiative in seeking to optimise the development of the Aurukun resource follows its action to secure surrender of the lease. Legislation was enacted in May 2004 to repeal the AAA and, as a consequence, to cancel ML7032.

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