WA Premier Mark McGowan warned Alcoa to lift its game or face curtailed mining, but his successor Roger Cook slashed water supply protections after a possibly empty threat from the US miner.
UK-listed Georgina Energy plans to drill in the remote Little Great Sandy Desert in search of helium, hydrogen and natural gas.
As the world electrifies, demand for the metal is expected to jump 50 per cent in 15 years.
The US miner is also facing declining production and delayed approvals in WA, where it mines three-quarters of its bauxite.
The cost to clean up Alcoa's Kwinana alumina refinery and its toxic tailings has driven the aluminium specialist's Australian operation to a $592 million loss in 2025.
The US company booked a $1.245 billion restructuring charge, predominantly driven by the closure of the refinery south of Perth, according to the 2025 accounts of Alcoa of Australia Limited, filed with corporate regulator ASIC.
Coupled with a $445 million charge in 2024, the cost of closing the Kwinana refinery is now $1.7 billion.
The 2025 charge included $614 million to cover future costs to close facilities and rehabilitate the environment, indicating that Alcoa significantly underestimated these costs in prior accounts.
Alcoa's $592 million loss in Australia in 2025 followed an $818 million profit in 2024.
Alcoa's operations in Australia are its strip mining of bauxite in the jarrah forest water catchments along the Darling Scarp, alumina refineries in Pinjarra and Wagerup, and a 55 per cent stake in the Portland aluminium smelter in Victoria.
It received $6.1 billion from alumina and aluminium sales last year, paid $4.9 billion to employees and suppliers, and sent $636 million of dividends to its owners.
The Kwinana-related restructuring charge is a one-off, suggesting Alcoa's Australian operation will likely return to profitability in 2026.
Alcoa has a stockpile of 141 million cubic metres of toxic red mud, accumulated over six decades of alumina refining at Kwinana, that is proving difficult to manage.
In 2009, Alcoa's Kwinana bauxite residue area was classified as a contaminated site requiring remediation due to alkali groundwater contamination within and beyond its boundaries.
In 2025, Alcoa increased the funds set aside for rehabilitating Kwinana by $614 million to cover the costs of water management and new designs for long-term landforms. The move follows a $341 million charge in 2024 for managing water at Kwinana.
The company is required under the Contaminated Sites Act to continually extract contaminated groundwater beneath the bauxite tailings to prevent the contamination from spreading.
This water was disposed of by using it in the refinery, where it evaporated.
With the refinery shut down, Alcoa now has permission to operate 37 giant sprinklers to spray thousands of tonnes of contaminated water an hour in a fine mist over the tailings, allowing some of it to evaporate.
The sprays are an interim measure until Alcoa can construct a wastewater treatment plant that received regulatory approval in February.
The $23 billion company is also facing problems in the jarrah forests of WA, where it sources three quarters of its bauxite - the ore that aluminium is extracted from.
Alcoa has delayed by two years plans to expand its Huntly mine that supplies the Pinjarra refinery, according to its 2025 annual report lodged with US regulator the SEC.
The US miner anticipates it will start mining the Myara North and Holyoake regions of its mine "no earlier than 2029." The target, in its 2024 report, was "no earlier than 2027."
Alcoa has been mining lower-grade bauxite in WA since 2023, when approvals to access new areas slowed and came with greater restrictions due to concerns that its deforestation risked contaminating dams vital to Perth's water supply.
Peter Milne
For five consecutive years, annual bauxite production has declined.
However, the alumina Alcoa shipped from WA was still among the cheapest 25 per cent of global production, according to the report to the SEC, but WA production could slip into the second quartile of costs until Alcoa gains access to new mining areas.
Boiling Cold reporting featured in Juice Media's recent take on Alcoa in WA.
Please support journalism holding resource companies to account - because WA Labor and The West Australian certainly will not.
UPDATE:
1 May 2025 - added charges for closing Kwinana is now $1.7 billion.
WA Premier Mark McGowan warned Alcoa to lift its game or face curtailed mining, but his successor Roger Cook slashed water supply protections after a possibly empty threat from the US miner.
A letter from the US miner raised hope that the jarrah forest inland from Perth would escape its strip mining for bauxite, but Alcoa is keeping its options open.
The US company will have a monopoly over WA bauxite mining and alumina refining, which it plans to operate for 40 years.
Alcoa acknowledged it destroyed the known habitat of protected species, including black cockatoos, quokkas and numbats.
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