Aluminium Corp. of China Ltd. said Friday that it has completed a pre-feasibility study into a US$2.2 billion alumina concession in northeastern Australia and is awaiting board approval to submit a final bid.

Chalco's chief representative in Australia, Wenfu Wang, said the study's findings are in line with Chalco's provisional bid submitted to the Queensland state government in March.

The provisional bid covered a bauxite mine in the remote Aurukun region and an alumina refinery in a coastal port town producing 2.1 million tons a year.

Wang declined to comment on whether Chalco had opted for Townsville, Bowen or Gladstone as the refinery's location.

Chalco's provisional bid, understood to be the only offer received, gave it exclusive rights to undertake a pre-feasibility study and submit a final bid by the end of May.

However, the company was granted an extension until end-June after a cyclone struck Queensland's Cape York Peninsula in April, delaying work.

Speaking from China, Wang said he expected board approval 'very soon,' which would allow the company to submit the final bid to Queensland authorities in the coming weeks.

Pending Queensland government acceptance, Chalco would then begin an estimated 1 1/2-year bankable feasibility study into what could be among the largest overseas investments by a Chinese firm.

He said Chalco will likely bring in a partner to share the estimated US$2.2 billion financial burden and contribute local experience to the project.

'At this submission stage it will be just ourselves, but after that we'll likely introduce some partners,' he said.

'We haven't had any detailed discussions, but were very open to a JV partner.'

Wang neither confirmed nor denied whether Chalco had received any expressions of interest from Russian Aluminium, or Rusal, the world's third-largest aluminium producer, which holds a 20% stake in the Queensland Alumina refinery.

Rusal's recently appointed Australian chief executive, Steven Hodgson, also declined comment on the Russian group's reported interest in Aurukun.

The Queensland state government is keen to get the Aurukun project back on track after reclaiming the leases from Canada's Alcan Inc. in 2004 on the basis that it failed to act on a 1988 development deadline.

Concerns over the deposit's quality, complex indigenous population issues and the cost of building an energy-intensive refinery in the current tight labor and equipment markets saw the list of 10 potential bidders reduce to one.