Cape Alumina Ltd "abandons" their Pisolite Hills bauxite project on Cape York

by Dave Kimble at www.peakoil.org.au

Cape Alumina Ltd have released an 8 page report to the ASX about their Pisolite Hills bauxite project on Cape York.

They say that the 500 metre Wild Rivers High Preservation Area around the river system means:

http://www.capealumina.com.au/documents/20101018_ASX_release_project_updated-FINAL.pdf 18 October 2010 "As a result of the review, the Cape Alumina Board has concluded that this loss of 45 per cent of dry beneficiated bauxite means that the project is no longer economically viable under forecast economic conditions and that it cannot proceed unless the HPAs are reduced in size. However, because of the uncertainty surrounding the Wild Rivers laws Cape Alumina will, at this stage, maintain its Mining Lease Applications (MLAs) and will continue the lengthy Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process."

So, far from having abandoned the project, they are keeping the leases and continuing with the EIS process, adding pressure to the Federal Opposition's attack on the Queensland legislation.

Although they blame the size of the HPAs, note that they also say "the project is no longer economically viable under forecast economic conditions". The Aurukun bauxite project has also been declared by Chalco to be unviable under the current weak economic conditions, and their project is exempt under the Wild Rivers Act (see Sections 45 and 46). So if demand picks up in the future and prices recover, both Aurukun and Pisolite Hills could well be back in business and the HPAs are not the make-or-break issue after all.

Despite headlining the 45% figure, Cape Alumina later mentions that the resource affected is only 23%, and that the remaining 22% is uneconomical because it is of too low a grade. They include it because it could have been blended with higher grade ore to meet market standards.

They claim that "a large body of robust scientific evidence" supports their position, but the fields of ecology and hydrology are NEVER robust in the way that physics and chemistry are. There is always a great deal of uncertainty in the natural sciences, and where the science is uncertain, the correct approach is to acknowledge the Precautionary Principle and err on the side of caution, which is what has been done.

Cape Alumina says, "... Minister Robertson's continued assertion, first made to the Queensland Parliament last year, that 'nobody has been able to provide details of one project that has been stopped as a result of Wild River declarations. It is time to actually deal with the facts', can no longer be substantiated." This is not true as the Minister hasn't stopped the project at all - he has given it the go ahead under the Wild Rivers Act, with conditions - as is always the case with development applications. Further assessments under other Queensland and Federal legislation await the completion of the EIS, and no doubt will impose further conditions.

What has been shown beyond doubt is that the disinformation being pedalled by Noel Pearson and The Australian about a 1,000 metre total prohibition zone, that would prevent anyone from even having a veggie garden, is completely untrue. The 1,000 metre zone is an area where environmental impacts have to be assessed and those impacts mitigated by appropriate management solutions. If you can do strip-mining within the 1,000 metre zone, you can certainly have horticultural developments, so long as the impacts are properly managed.