Alcoa, FYI to consider refinery

Plans for a high purity alumina refinery in Kwinana received a small boost today, with Alcoa to investigate developing the project with proponent FYI Resources.

Alcoa of Australia and FYI signed a memorandum of understanding to progress to a joint venture on the project and for exploring offtake options for the product.

High purity alumina is used to manufacture semiconductors and in other technology applications.

The refinery would be fed by FYI’s planned Cadoux kaolin mine.

All up, the combined project would cost about $US 189 million, according to FYI’s feasibility study.

FYI managing director Roland Hill said Alcoa would potentially partner in developing the project.

“They will join us in co-developing the (high purity alumina) process flowsheet and refining technologies, and commercialising the HPA business model as outlined in our recently published definitive feasibility study,” Mr Hill said

“This represents a significant step forward in our project development and is consistent with our broader development objective of attracting globally significant and strategic bluechip partners to work alongside FYI in commercialising our HPA. 

“We look forward to progressing this exciting collaboration to the next stage of project development.”

FYI raised $2.7 million for the project in August, after an $80 million equity financing facility in March with Luxembourg alternative funder GEM Global Yield.

The company also reported success in trial production at its Welshpool pilot plant.

Shares in FYI were up 8.7 per cent to 12.5 cents each at the time of writing.