Australia Bauxite Ltd. to fund Stage 1 of its bauxite refining project ALCORE

After almost two months, Tasmanian miner, Australia Bauxite Ltd. has made a significant progress with its bauxite refining project ALCORE. In our previous news, we had reported that engineering and cost study for the first stage was finished, including the construction of an engineering validation plant in New South Wales. Now, the update is company board of directors has approved the incorporation of ALCORE limited as a wholly-owned subsidiary to fund and manage the project, leading to the construction of ALCORE production plant to produce annually 50,000 tonnes of aluminium fluoride and core products.

The recent developments also include ALCORE to start ALCORE technology for converting raw bauxite worth approximately US$50 per tonne into bauxite products worth more than US$1,000 per tonne. The operating cost for this technology is estimated to be around US$400 to US$500 per tonne of bauxite.

The company, however, has slashed the 12 month budget for the stage 1 pilot plant and production of aluminium fluoride test samples program in its current progress. For site operations, ABx has fixed the budget at US$2.5 million; and for working capital and administration cost, the allocated amount is US$0.5 million and US$0.3 million respectively.

 A party that is providing services to ALCORE stage 1 has promised to fund US$1 million. Other parties supporting the new technology have committed to fund US$0.5 million and $0.2 million. The remaining US$1.6 million of capital is expected to be fully subscribed to complete the funding of stage 1. The deadline to finish these funding arrangements is June 30, 2018.

The ALCORE project will start as soon as stage 1 pilot plant begins its operations at a pre-approved factory site in Berkeley Vale, central coast NSW for the production of Aluminium Fluoride (AlF3) test samples.

Ian Levy, ABx CEO said, “The ALCORE Project must be pursued without delay. Its customers are aluminium smelters and that industry is growing at an amazing pace. ABx however also has two core bauxite development projects that need all of the time and energies of ABx's project development team, namely the large Binjour Project in central QLD and the Penrose refractory bauxite project 90km inland of Port Kembla NSW. Separating ALCORE into its own entity with its own management and destiny will unlock considerable value for shareholders in both the short and medium terms. Financing of the ALCORE Production Plant cannot be pre-determined but an IPO during 2019 is one route, should there be no superior offers at the time."