News: Australian Bauxite ups Tasmanian bauxite resources

Australian Bauxite (ASX:ABX) has estimated initial resources for its Bald Hill mine near the Campbell Town production centre in Tasmania to be 3.5 million tonnes.

Total Tasmanian bauxite resources now total 9.2 million tonnes, an increase of 61%, with bulk test pits in mid-2013 indicating yields of 65% to 75%.

Crucially, reactive silica grades are low at 3.1%, with available alumina grades of 37.2%.

Extensions of the Bald Hill deposit have been found and will be exploited during mining, and deposits at Fingal Rail and Nile Road are known to extend beyond the resource limits.

These initial resources from the Campbell Town production centre increase ABX’s total bauxite resource base for all regions to 119 million tonnes.

Drilling is in progress in the DL-130 area and revised resource estimation will be conducted over coming months, especially for the newly discovered Rubble Flat deposit.

Campbell Town has mined about 10,000 tonnes, screened 7,000 tonnes and is proceeding to full scale production and export from Bell Bay Port.

Bald Hill is the first new Australian Bauxite mine for more than 35 years, with first shipments targeted for second quarter this year.

The DL-130 area is scheduled to be ABX’s second bauxite production centre, commencing in 2016.

ABX's 37 bauxite tenements in Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania exceed 5,000 square kilometres.

Projects were selected for their good quality bauxite, low cost transport to ports, and absence of socio-environmental constraints.

All tenements are 100% owned, unencumbered and free of third-party royalties.

The company’s bauxite is high quality gibbsite trihydrate that processes into alumina at low temperature. This type is in short-supply globally.