Bauxite is aluminium ore. It is formed over millions of years by the breakdown of iron-poor volcanic rocks that are exposed to high-rainfall weathering. It becomes of economic interest when the alumina (aluminium oxide) content has risen to at least a third by weight. Though bauxite is a common ore around the world, Australia has managed to be the largest producer.
We usually hear about bauxite mining in the Gulf of Carpentaria (Weipa) and in the Northern Territory (Gove), but Tasmania has heaps of the stuff – we just haven’t mined it before (to my knowledge).
However we do have an aluminium industry – Rio Tinto Alcan at Bell Bay, formerly known as Comalco. On this site, processed bauxite in the form of alumina from Gladstone in Queensland is electrically smelted to make aluminium ingots. The industry employs about 500 people and it came here back in 1955 because of cheap power and good deep-water port facilities.
You recently saw the Bell Bay aluminium smelter in the news, because of the new international shipping service that they organised to export their product.
You may also remember the news last year about renegotiation and renewal of their cheap power contract for the next 12 years. Whether we should have given them the cheap power or not, could reasonably be debated. Sue Neales at the Mercury once pointed out that if we closed down Bell Bay and simply sold the spare power to Victoria, the profit would allow every Bell Bay employee to go on holidays on full pay for the rest of their lives! That’s a simplistic scenario, and the new shipping service shows that there are spin-off benefits to having the smelter, but it shows that the special deal might reasonably be questioned and discussed, without ideology and emotion having to intrude. Personally, I haven’t researched it, and therefore do not have a view on the matter.
The fact that Tasmania has never mined bauxite (to my knowledge) doesn’t mean that we can’t, and we have a number of natural advantages. Recent work by Australian Bauxite Ltd has shown that we have high grade ore deposits close to road and rail infrastructure, and close to export ports.
Australian Bauxite Ltd – Tasmanian leases (from the company’s announcements)
Australian Bauxite’s recent string of announcements about proving up their resources, and likely development of a bauxite mine or mines, especially their announcement of a Chinese joint venture partner last week, prompted me to look at their proposal.
They appear to be a credible company with credible projects, and have exploration licences in northern Tasmania covering 1,419km2 at last count. They have commercial resources identified near Campbell Town and Westbury, which are high in alumina content and low in undesirables, and they are prospecting on ground near Scottsdale.
The company says that bauxite areas tend to be poor quality soils, and to my knowledge this is true. The extraction process involves removing the soil cover, digging out the bauxite, then putting the soil back. The end result is ground that is disturbed, and slightly lower than before. There are no chemicals involved, and the ore is shipped in the form that it is dug out. The operation is the same as we have all over the State already for the production of sands and gravels. Bauxite is a type of gravel anyway, and similar deposits which have a higher iron content are dug out to use as road cover near where I live on the Tamar. Such quarries can create a mess if not supervised, and dust, and trucks on the road, but they are something that we are used to and are not polluting in the usual sense.
I was a little wary about the Westbury part of their project due to potential impact on forests in the area, but on looking at the site I am satisfied that the location is as they describe it – an area of plantations in the process of being harvested, and thus already degraded. The exact site is between 6km and 7km north of the Bass Highway, midway between Deloraine and Westbury, immediately south of the Brushy Rivulet Forest Reserve.
The Westbury project area (from the company’s announcements)
As usual, the government and media are completely uncritical of this project, accept the company’s statements at face value, and do not question their bona fides in terms of financial capacity or expertise. However in this instance, the project does appear genuine and one that I am comfortable supporting. This is not to say that I am confident that it will actually proceed, as the local deposits are comparatively small and the company’s Queensland projects appear to be a better commercial proposition. I would not be surprised if Queensland went ahead, and Tasmania missed out. However should it proceed, I would support it.
