Will supply approximately 400,000 bone dry metric tons of bauxite from its Huntly mine in Western Australia
Alcoa Corporation, the world’s largest bauxite miner, has announced that Alcoa World Alumina and Chemicals has secured its first major third-party contract to supply approximately 400,000 bone dry metric tons of bauxite from its Huntly mine in Western Australia (WA), furthering Alcoa’s strategy to grow its third-party bauxite business.
“This Western Australian contract comes just months after our first trial bauxite shipment from WA to China in mid-2016, which successfully introduced our WA product to the global market,” said Garret Dixon, President of Alcoa Bauxite, who is based in Perth.
The WA State Government has also granted approval for Alcoa to export up to 2.5 million metric tons per annum of bauxite for five years to third-party customers.
”Bauxite exports have the potential to generate greater value from our WA mineral lease, creating additional revenue streams for Alcoa and the State of Western Australia, while maintaining supply to our three WA refineries,” Mr Dixon said.
The WA contract is one of three bauxite agreements recently signed worth a total of $US126 million to deliver approximately 2.2 million bdmt of bauxite to customers in China in 2017. In addition to the WA contract, Alcoa will supply bauxite from its two mines in Brazil—Juruti and Mineração Rio do Norte, where Alcoa and AWAC hold an 18.2 percent equity investment. The two supply agreements for Brazil bauxite replace 2016 contract volume.
The contracts increase the total value of Alcoa’s 2016 and 2017 third-party bauxite supply agreements to nearly $US 600 million.