The ministry of industry, innovation and science last month released its resources and energy report for September 2017, including the refractory bauxite.
The amount of Australian bauxite exports is expected to increase from $1 billion in 2016-17 to $1.1 billion in 2018-19, driven by higher exports.
Australia's bauxite production is expected to reach 94m tonnes in 2018-19.China's regulatory change and increased illegal mining in Malaysia are a short-term challenge to Australia's exports of bauxite.
The world's bauxite production will grow strongly in 2018 and 2019.World bauxite production rose 9.3 per cent year on year to 74m tonnes as Australia, the world's largest producer of bauxite, rose 5.1 per cent to 22 million tonnes.During that period, Africa's production increased 51 percent year on year to 11 million tons.China, the world's second-largest producer of bauxite, remains unchanged at 15 million tonnes.
The output of bauxite is expected to increase from 22 million tons in 2016 to 26 million tons in 2017 as demand for aluminum increases domestically.India has 3.1 billion tons of bauxite (about 5 percent of the world's bauxite resources).To encourage the development of bauxite, the Indian mining ministry has recently increased the lease area of its bauxite mine from 10 square kilometers to 50 square kilometers.
In 2018 and 2019, the world's bauxite production is expected to grow by 8 per cent to 306 million tonnes and 331 million tonnes, largely driven by new capacity in Australia.Australia's bauxite production is expected to grow at least 6% a year, to 92m tonnes a year in 2018-19, as the new bauxite mining company and Rio tinto's new bauxite project go into production.Other contributors to the increase in global bauxite production include guinea, Malaysia and Indonesia.In Malaysia, the government implemented a comprehensive mining ban in early 2016 to limit supply growth and address social and environmental problems.The ban has been extended four times and is expected to continue for the rest of 2017.However, the bauxite mining in penhang, Malaysia's largest bauxite region, is continuing.The ban is already largely ineffective, as illegal miners react to strong demand from China.
In Indonesia, the government recently lifted a ban on the export of bauxite minerals from 2014 to 2016.Lifting the export ban is likely to spur Indonesia's production of bauxite.Indonesia's bauxite production reached 57 million tons in 2013.
Guinea has become a major producer of bauxite, producing more than 19 million tons in the first half of 2017, a 51 percent increase over the same period last year.A significant increase in the production of bauxite in guinea will increase the production of bauxite in Africa by at least 23 per cent a year to 68 million tonnes by 2019.An increasing number of high-level bauxite projects are supporting the production capacity of the bauxite mine in guinea.p>
As the world's second largest producer of bauxite, China's output is unlikely to rise much in the short and medium term.The impact factors include the reduction of alumina production in the winter of 2017-18, the decline of domestic bauxite quality and the depletion of China's resources.In June 2017, China's bauxite imports increased 53% year on year.It is expected to continue the trend of low production growth and high import growth in the future.
China's bauxite producers and importers are now more willing to invest heavily in foreign countries such as guinea and ship bauxite products back to China.China's main importer of bauxite is located in shandong province and the largest is wei qiao and xin fa.In the guinea project, shandong weiqiao transported more than 10 million tons of bauxite ore back to China.It is expected to reach 20 million tons in 2017 and 25 million tons in 2018.In addition, chinalco plans to invest $500 million in bauxite in guinea from next year.
Ghana is another potential bauxite producer in Africa.In June 2017, the Chinese government pledged $15 billion in loans to the ghanaian government to build and develop bauxite processing facilities.