The Weipa Bauxite Mine, located on the western Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland, Australia, is one of the country’s major bauxite operations. The deposit was discovered in 1955 by geologist Harry Evans, and mining officially commenced in 1963. The mine is owned and operated by Rio Tinto, which holds a majority stake alongside Alumina Limited and the Queensland government.
The extensive bauxite deposits of the Weipa region, northern Queensland, are a loose agglomeration of nodules, pisoliths, ooliths and fine material, with a mean particle size of 5 mm. Only about 5% of the deposit is finer than 0.1 mm, about 5% is coarser than 10 mm, and the bulk of the deposit is made up of pisoliths and ooliths [1].
The Bauxite is overlain by soil that in most places is mixed with the upper portion of the Bauxite over about 30 cm. There is little more than 20 m of relief across the deposit; in some drainages the bauxite is overlain by or contains within it unconformably ‘redsoil’, a fine-grained oolitic facies, rich in Al2O3 [1].
In 2025, Rio Tinto’s Weipa bauxite production remains robust with current operations centered around the Amrun mine, which achieved its nameplate capacity of approximately 22.8 million tonnes per year recently [2].
Rio Tinto is actively investing in expanding its bauxite production capacity at Weipa’s southern operations. They have approved early works and are conducting final engineering studies for the Kangwinan project, a new mine development about 15 km southeast of Amrun [2].
This project aims to nearly double Weipa’s bauxite output by adding up to 20 million tonnes annually to the existing 23 million tonnes capacity, although first production from Kangwinan is expected as early as 2029 [2].
Reference
[1] G. Taylor, R. A. Eggleton, L. D. Foster, D. B. Tilley, M. Le Gleuher, and C. M. Morgan, “Nature of the Weipa Bauxite deposit, northern Australia,” Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, vol. 55, no. sup1, pp. S45–S70, Dec. 2008, doi: 10.1080/08120090802438241.
[2] “Weipa.” Accessed: Aug. 20, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.riotinto.com/en/operations/australia/weipa
