Key Highlights

• An independent study finds trucking bauxite to the coast looks workable.

• Volumes modelled are well above the company's earlier plan.

• Alurion is a mineral exploration company.

• The study is a step towards a potential development case.

Alurion Resources (ASX:ALU) has released an independent study finding that trucking bauxite from its Brazilian project to the coast looks workable at volumes well above the company's earlier plan. That matters for a materials explorer whose Economics depend on moving heavy, low-value rock cheaply.

What the company does

Alurion is a mineral exploration company. Its asset is the Amargosa bauxite-gallium project in Bahia, Brazil, which the company is advancing as a direct-shipping bauxite operation, with gallium and heavy-mineral by-products as possible extras.

The Business was demerged from Brazilian Rare Earths and began trading on the ASX on 31 July 2026 after a A$50 million initial public offering, according to a media report. The ASX lists it under the Materials sector.

The haulage study

On 6 October 2026 Alurion released work by Brazilian consultancy Engimind. It found road haulage viable at 5.75, 8.6 and 11.5 million wet tonnes a year, the top case being double the 5.75 million wet tonne base case in the earlier Scoping Study.

Alurion trucks would make up under 1% of road traffic at the base case and 1.6% at the highest rate, with no modelled road-capacity constraints. The routes run about 160 kilometres from the North District and about 220 kilometres from the Central District to the Port of Enseada, mostly on the BR-101 highway.

A southern alternative of roughly 86 kilometres would link the Central District to a proposed load-out on the FIOL railway.

The resource and the market

The Mineral Resource Estimate stands at 568 million tonnes, made up of 98 million tonnes of direct-shipping bauxite and 470 million tonnes of bauxite that would need beneficiation. The Scoping Study production target is about 89% Indicated and 11% Inferred resources, and is accurate only to plus or minus 35%.

The company has estimated no Ore Reserve. Drilling so far follows a historical 200 by 200 metre grid laid down by Rio Tinto, which the new work will infill locally to 100 by 100 metres. Its stated product specification is at least 40% total available alumina and under 3% reactive silica.

Alurion cites China importing 140 million tonnes of bauxite in the seven months to 31 July 2026, up 13.5% year on year, with Guinea supplying about 81% of it. Those are the company's own calculations, but they frame why it is courting buyers outside the dominant source.

Alurion says it has held only preliminary, non-binding talks with alumina and aluminium groups in China, the Middle East and Brazil. It has named no offtaker.

Risks to weigh

The haulage volumes are assessment scenarios, not production targets. The rail-and-Porto Sul option relies on third-party infrastructure to which Alurion has no access rights, and any Enseada port access or expansion needs a commercial agreement with the port operator.

Bauxite is a bulk commodity, so freight and port costs weigh heavily on margins, and a product missing moisture or specification limits would matter. Scoping-level economics can shift materially once drilling, metallurgy and permitting are tested. As a pre-revenue explorer, Alurion will keep spending on studies, and its shares were only listed in July 2026, so its trading history is still short.

What comes next

The road study is the first pre-feasibility workstream to finish. Infill drilling of 223 holes totalling 3,236 metres and trenching are scheduled from the fourth quarter of 2026, followed by moisture, particle-size and transportable moisture limit testing in the first quarter of 2027.

Bayer-process trials and co-product recovery tests are also planned, covering ilmenite, zircon, monazite and gallium. Updated resource estimates, including critical minerals, are due in the second quarter of 2027, and the pre-feasibility study is targeted for mid-2027. The company describes the timetable as indicative and subject to change.