Over the 15 years that the First Bauxite Corporation’s mine in Sand Hills, Region Three, is expected to be in operation, over US$387 million will be injected in the local economy, Company official Ian Christie said yesterday.
Christie, Vice-President of Government Relations with First Bauxite, made the disclosure during a tour of the company’s Bonasika Bauxite Project, which is still in the construction phase. When full production starts later in the year, the company projects that US$387.35 million will be injected into the country over the 15-year life of the mine, an estimation could increase.
Christie, who is also a Director of Guyana Industrial Minerals Inc., the licence holder and operator of the Bonasika Bauxite Project, noted that while currently only 200 tonnes of bauxite per day is being produced and shipped offshore to be tested and made into products for marketing, when full operations begin over 300,000 metric tonnes of washed bauxite will be produced. This would be achieved with a planned workforce of over 240 persons, 96% of whom will be Guyanese. As a result, the project’s employee earnings for the period is pegged at US$111.5 million.