How much are Vietnamese bauxite reserves worth ?
According to various sources, Vietnam has about 2.1 billion tons of bauxite reserves which are “economically exploitable”, and about 5.4 billion tons of total reserve base (including those reserves which are not ecenomically exploitable in the current technological & economical situation). Vietnamese bauxite is of “low to average” quality compared to the other places: alumina (Al2O3) makes up only about 40% of the weight (?) Currently it takes as much as 5 tons of bauxite in Vietnam to produce 1 ton of alumina (apparently due to inadequate technology: about 50% of alumina is lost in the pre-treatment & the Bayer process). Let’s say a ton of alumina is worth 300 USD. The amount of unmined bauxite used to make it (5 tons) is worth something like 100 USD, then a ton of Vietnamese bauxite is worth something like 20 USD. (It is a reasonable estimation, given the prices that China, US … paid for bauxite including transport). So Vietnamese bauxite reserves are worth about 40Billion USD, if on
