Work on the country’s second bauxite mining and alumina production project will begin in the Central Highlands province of Dak Nong this weekend.
The state-owned Vietnam National Coal and Minerals Industries Group (Vinacomin) would start building the US$655 million Nhan Co alumina plant on Sunday, the government’s website said.
The factory is expected to go on stream by the end of 2012, producing 650,000 tons of alumina a year. The capacity will double after 2015.
The government expects the plant to provide 1,350 jobs and annual revenues of VND3.756 trillion ($201 million).
The plant would use advanced technologies and be environment-friendly, it said.
Alumina is the raw material used to produce aluminum.
When the government mooted this and another alumina project, a number of prominent scientists, intellectuals, and Central Highlands residents opposed them fearing the environmental consequences of bauxite mining, one of the world’s most polluting processes.
Among them was 97-year-old war hero General Vo Nguyen Giap, who said they should be scrapped.
“Bauxite mining would cause serious consequences in terms of the environment …,” he said.
Last March he wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung asking for the plans to be put on hold until international experts carry out studies.
But in April the government said it would go ahead with the plan in three phases through 2025. The plan sets out a timeline for a series of bauxite mining and alumina production projects in the Central Highlands.
Tan Rai and Nhan Co, the first two and to be done on a pilot basis, were put on the table shortly afterwards.
Vinacomin has said it expects the country’s first alumina plant, Tan Rai in Lam Dong, to start production as early as August this year and produce 650,000 tons annually from 2011.
Vietnam has estimated bauxite reserves of 5.4 billion tons, most of it in the Central Highlands.
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