Former BHP executive Alberto Calderon joins new Cape York export bauxite project
September 9, 2014 - 3:45PM
What does a high-powered executive do when he retires from the top tier of BHP Billiton?
In Alberto Calderon's case, he teams up with some of most experienced alumni from the old enemy, Rio Tinto, and starts working on a bauxite export project on the Cape York Peninsula.
Bauxite is one of the hottest commodities in the mining sector at the moment, with prices trading near all-time highs and big miners like Glencore and Rio running the ruler over new Australian bauxite projects.
Mr Calderon, who was one of BHP's top five executives during the Marius Kloppers era, has moved early to join that race by going into business with Gulf Alumina, a private company that is developing bauxite tenements north of Weipa.
Mr Calderon said he had made a "medium"-sized investment in Gulf Alumina, under a royalty deal that will see him take a percentage of revenues from the company's exports. He is also helping the company by advising it on other off-take deals.
The investment is the first step in Mr Calderon's plans to set up a private equity group, based on royalty streaming deals.
"Bauxite is an interesting commodity. I think it has a very good future, and in this private equity space, and I'm looking for similar deals in copper," he said.
Gulf Alumina plans to export about 3 million tonnes of bauxite per year from its Cape York tenements, which are less than 200 kilometres from where Rio is expected to launch a major bauxite expansion later this year.
The Gulf Alumina team also includes Anthony Kjar, who has extensive knowledge of Rio's bauxite business at Weipa, the Chinese aluminium company Shandong Nanshan and London investment bank Liberium Capital.
Mr Calderon said bauxite's appeal stemmed from China's growing dependence on imported bauxite.
China's supply of bauxite is deteriorating in quality, pushing it to import increasing amounts of the aluminium ingredient from other nations.
"Somebody said years ago when China gets in, you get out. When China gets out, you get in," said Mr Calderon.
Alan Clark, who runs one of the world's few bauxite price indexes, said China's conundrum became more serious when its biggest supplier of bauxite, Indonesia, banned exports of raw materials in January.
"Bauxite is now coming from countries that are geographically quite some distance from China," he said.
"Places like Ghana, Guinea and Brazil have been supplying more bauxite to the Chinese and as a result those cargoes with the extra transport costs have effectively pushed the index price to a record high."
Mr Clark, whose index is simply called The Bauxite Index, said Australian producers such as Gulf Alumina and Rio were well placed to benefit from China's growing need to import bauxite.
"The Chinese are looking further and further afield and so from here in Australia, we are well positioned to supply China both geographically and in terms of the types of bauxite the Chinese are looking for," he said.
Dabbling in bauxite and copper is a different game to Mr Calderon's most recent role at BHP, where he was in charge of corporate development and, specifically, the nickel and aluminium assets.
But he says despite the peak of the mining boom being in the past, there are still many opportunities to make money in the sector.
"There are some commodities that do have a future still, and so the trick is finding the right type of projects with the right kind of risk and identifying them," said Mr Calderon.
