Ann: Approval of Environmental Authority for the MDL Work Program, page-112

The final mining license is different and far more stringent than an MDL approval. I've had several clients get MDL approvals within months because it's only a small program/the impacts are relatively low.

I think QBL double whammy was actually moreso their proximity to a community which always means the government will take additional looks and perhaps their own efforts/contractors hired for this weren't on top of it all (not sure about this one because sometimes hindsight is 20/20 but in the moment you're trying to do everything right).

Price of bauxite is normally based on a standard alumina % and reactive silica % which relates to major bauxite deposits worldwide (weipa being one of them). The alumina % of south J is lower than this index and the reactive silica is higher. Both of these would mean they will get paid a discount to the spot market price or it may even be that only certain refineries can use the dirt at all.

Traditional Bayer process refineries heat and pressurise a mixture of the bauxite with caustic soda to extract the alumina. This is the most expensive process in the entire plant and the lower the alumina % and the higher the reactive silica makes this process more and more economically challenging for the refinery. At Queensland Alumina (in gladstone) they use 2 tonnes of weipa bauxite to get 1 tonne of alumina. If they were going to use South J bauxite, they would need 3.5-4 tonnes of bauxite for every 1 tonne of alumina. This is a huge increase in costs and a large decrease in productivity.

I like your optimism but for the reasons explained above I don't see it being as easy as you might expect to find a buyer. Bauxite/Alumina is one of the more intense processes worldwide and the feedstock quality requirement dictates so much of the economics.