Natural Resources and Environment Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar also said that the high stockpiles, nearly a year after the ban was first imposed, suggested illegal mining might have been carried out.
“There’s an indication that there is illegal mining going on, otherwise there would be no heap (of bauxite),” Wan Junaidi told a press conference.
About 2.95 million tonnes of stockpiles remain around Kuantan, the capital of the key bauxite producing state of Pahang, he said. Kuantan had 3.6 million tonnes of stocks in April.
The largely unregulated bauxite mining industry had boomed over the last two years to meet demand from top aluminium producer China, filling in a supply gap after Indonesia banned exports.
But the frenetic pace of digging led to a public outcry with many complaining of water contamination and destruction of the environment.
Last January, the government imposed its first three-month ban on mining the commodity, before extending it multiple times.
Wan Junaidi said that any mining firms operating illegally might be granted permission to extract bauxite in the future if they applied for proper permits from the state government.
During the ban, Malaysia had exported 5.3 million tonnes of bauxite, he said, just a quarter of the 20 million tonnes shipped to China between January and November 2015.