page_title: Bauxite
section_title: Production and reserves
hierarchical_section_title: Bauxite / Production and reserves
caption_attribution_description: English: One of the world's largest bauxite mines in Weipa, Cape York, Australia
context_page_description: Bauxite is a sedimentary rock with a relatively high aluminium content. It is the world's main source of aluminium and gallium. Bauxite consists mostly of the aluminium minerals gibbsite, boehmite and diaspore, mixed with the two iron oxides goethite and haematite, the aluminium clay mineral kaolinite and small amounts of anatase and ilmenite.
  In 1821 the French geologist Pierre Berthier discovered bauxite near the village of Les Baux in Provence, southern France.
context_section_description: Australia is the largest producer of bauxite, followed by China. Increased aluminium recycling, which has the advantage of lowering the cost in electric power in producing aluminium, will considerably extend the world's bauxite reserves.
  In November 2010, Nguyen Tan Dung, the prime minister of Vietnam, announced that Vietnam's bauxite reserves might total 11,000 Mt (11 trillion kg); this would be the largest in the world.
caption: One of the world's largest bauxite mines in Weipa, Australia
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