Amrun shipped its first bauxite in December, six weeks ahead of schedule. At full production, it will have capacity to produce 22.8 million metric tons per year (mt/y) of bauxite, with options to expand. Rio Tinto’s total annual bauxite export capacity from the Cape York peninsula will increase by about 10 million mt at a time when higher-grade bauxite is becoming scarcer globally.

The Amrun mine, plant, and export facility were approved in 2015. In an industry first, the project’s 1-kilometer-long export facility was built in modules offsite and then brought to Amrun and connected, reducing over-water construction and painting and reducing construction time by a year. Safety was also increased by removing the need for 300,000 work hours that would have been spent at height and over water.