Brisbane-based bauxite developer Metallica Minerals Ltd. announced the first bauxite ore shipment from Hey Point at Cape York, Queensland. This shipment represents the first independent bauxite export from the Cape in over half a century.
Metallica’s press release said that Green Coast Resources (GCR) made the shipment using infrastructure that Metallica intends to use to deliver its ore from the Urquhart Bauxite project. The firm anticipates its first shipment to occur in the first half of 2017.
Per the announcement, Oresome Australia Pty Ltd, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Metallica, has a fifty percent interest in the Cape York HMS & Bauxite Project Joint Venture. The joint venture entered into a Heads of Agreement with GCR to directly ship bauxite ore from the Urquhart Bauxite project nine miles away from Hey Point. Working capital for the project’s first bauxite ore shipment was supplied to GCR by Metallica by way of a short-term loan. The terms of this loan oblige GCR to provide transshipment services and access to the facilities to Metallica.
“Metallica congratulates GCR in becoming the first independent company to export bauxite from Cape York since 1963. The ability to transship bauxite into ocean going export vessels, utilizing the Hey Point barge loading facility, validates Metallica’s decision to choose the low capital cost and established facilities at Hey Point as its logistics solution for Urquhart Bauxite. The established and now tested infrastructure delivers a real solution to export markets for bauxite product from our project.”
The Hey Point Bauxite Project is at the confluence of the Embley and Hey rivers, not far from Weipa, Queensland. It is owned and operated by Green Coast Resource Pty Ltd, who came into ownership after purchasing the project from Cape Alumina Ltd two years ago. The Project has access to a port with waters sufficiently deep for loading bauxite ore on to barges for shipment.