A milestone to be celebrated

THE first shipment of bauxite from Rio Tinto’s Amrun project at Weipa is a significant milestone.

More than 80,000 tonnes of bauxite was loaded on to the RTM Weipa bound for Rio Tinto’s Yarwun alumina refinery in Gladstone six weeks ahead of schedule.

The $2.6 billion investment in Amrun will replace production from the depleting East Weipa mine and increase annual bauxite exports by about 10 million tonnes. Amrun is expected to reach a full production rate of 22.8 million tonnes a year during 2019.

During construction the Amrun development set a benchmark in supporting local and regional suppliers with $2.1 billion invested with Australian companies, including $244 million with 71 local Cape York companies, as well 24 Cairns and 727 Queensland businesses, totalling $1.5 billion. At the peak of construction 1200 people worked on site and close to 400 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been employed by the project.

Rio Tinto now employs 1400 people on its Weipa sites with 290 transferring to Amrun.

Bauxite is one of the building blocks of the modern economy, used to produce aluminium, which goes into everything from beer cans to frames for solar panels.

One of the biggest users are China. Rio Tinto says the company is “geographically well positioned to supply China’s significant future import needs”.

It says Amrun will “ensure generational jobs for Queenslanders” and continue their 55-year history on the Western Cape.

Amrun is the biggest mine venture in the Far North and a key contributor to the region’s economy. Nick Dalton Deputy editor