Brazil's Companhia Brasileira de Alum?-nio (CBA) expects to finish a feasibility study for its Rondon bauxite mine by year-end 2022, but will need a strategic partner for the operation's start-up, the aluminium company said on Thursday August 26.
"We expect this process to develop for around 18 more months, or until the end of next year," chief financial officer Luciano Alves said in a press conference. "Then we can make a decision and maybe start implementing it."
The investments required for the project were calculated at 2 billion Reais ($382 million). Rondon's capactiy would start at 4.5 million tonnes per year (tpy) of bauxite, which could quadruple in three phases of exploration, reaching up to 18 million tpy of bauxite.
"We could reach 18 million [tpy] but such figures would be excessive to start a new bauxite project," chief executive officer Ricardo Carvalho said. "It's an open-pit, Amazon bauxite mine similar to Paragominas and MRN [Minera????o Rio do Norte] with homogeneous deposits and we would focus on exporting."
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