Distribution, genetic types and current situation of exploration and development of bauxite resources

Bauxite is the main source of metal aluminum. In recent years, with the rapid economic and social development and the gradual progress of urbanization, China's aluminum demand is increasing year by year. In order to deepen the understanding of the spatial distribution and geological characteristics of bauxite and grasp the trend of bauxite exploration and development, this paper briefly summarizes the distribution characteristics of bauxite, the main types and the distribution of bauxite in the main resource countries, and emphatically introduces the new progress of bauxite exploration and development in recent years. Based on ore genesis, bauxite is divided into two types, lateritic type and karst type. The former is mainly distributed in western Africa, north South America, India, Southeast Asia, northern and southwestern Australia, while the latter primarily occurs in southern Europe, Caribbean region, western Asia and China. As to the exploration of bauxite, among the main bauxite-rich countries, Guinea, Russia and Australia focus on reserve addition of large mature mines, while Brazil, Ghana and Jamaica on exploration of new prospective areas. As for bauxite development, Australia, Guinea and China are currently the world's leading producers of bauxite, which together accounted for about 70% of the world's total production in 2019. In the first half of 2020, there was a panic drop in prices of major metals due to the COVID-19 epidemic. Despite the recent rebound trend in the prices of major metals, the United States, Brazil, India and other major economies in the world are still in the grip of the epidemic; the United Kingdom, France, Italy and other European Union countries are still facing great pressure to prevent the epidemic, and there is also the possibility of a second wave of the epidemic in the world. In this context, bauxite exploration and development situation is still very variable.