Regular readers will know that I have been a fan of Australian Bauxite Ltd (ASX: ABX) for a little while, having published the company as my Top Stock pick for September this year.
There's a lot to like about this junior bauxite explorer, which was just yesterday granted its first Tasmanian mining lease, ML1961 at its Bald Hill project in Tasmania.
In addition to Bald Hill, Australian Bauxite has two other potential mines in Tassie, named Fingal Rail and DL-130 (see diagram below).
Asides from very high international bauxite prices, a major attraction of these tenements is their proximity to rail, port and smelter infrastructure.
While the company initially intends to simply export Direct Shipping Ore (DSO) bauxite to China, the stage is set for it to become the perfect integrated miner/refiner at its mines both in Tasmania and on the east coast of Australia should it so choose.
ABX recently lodged its Development Proposal and Environmental Management Plan with local councils to be advertised and placed on public display for 28 days.
Once this procedure is concluded, a Development Approval can be issued and operations are expected to commence in late 2014.
A further attraction of the company is that all of its tenements are 100% owned, unencumbered and free from third party royalties, which should make its operations just that much more resilient once bauxite supplies catch up to demand.
Australian Bauxite is aiming to become one of the largest bauxite suppliers to China over the coming few years and given what it's already achieved, I'm not betting against it.
It's far from Australia's only great speculative resource company however, with The Motley Fool's team of top analysts recently coming together to write a special report on three of the most promising.
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