Australian Companies Making Their Mark on the Global Fertilser Market
COMMODITY CAPERS: If a market appears, Australia has always been able to identify a mine to supply it. These ASX-listed potash-focused entities are showing how it’s done.
AUSTRALIAN POTASH (ASX: APC)
The main project for Australian Potash is the 100 per cent-owned Lake Well potash project, located 500 kilometres north-east of Kalgoorlie in the eastern goldfields region of Western Australia.
The project hosts a JORC 2012-compliant Inferred Mineral Resource, which has been measured considering potential future economic abstraction estimated at 18.4 million tonnes at 8050 milligrams per litre (mg/L) (8.05kg/m3) Sulphate of Potash (SOP).
A high-grade zone occupying the western part of the Lake Wells potash project has an Inferred estimate of 10.5 million tonnes at 9028 mg/L (9.028 kg/m3) SOP.
Australian Potash has also reported its Resource estimate using total porosity, which estimates the total amount of in-situ brine in the aquifer.
The company believes this allows investors to more easily make a comparison between its Resource estimate and estimates made by companies that choose not to disclose their resource estimates using specific yield.
Mineral Resource Estimate using total porosity the total in-situ Inferred Mineral Resource estimate has been reported at 70 million tonnes of SOP at 8.05kg/m3, including a high-grade zone of 40 million tonnes of SOP at 9.03kg/m3.
PARKWAY MINERALS (ASX: PWN)
Parkway Minerals (ASX: PWN) (formerly Potash West) recently took a plunge into the Western Australian salt lake sector with the establishment of the Lake Barlee potash/lithium brine project, located northwest of Kalgoorlie.
Parkway Minerals secured 10 exploration licenses covering 1,834 square kilometres of Lake Barlee, approximately 200km north of the township of Southern Cross in Western Australia.
Parkway has pegged nine exploration licenses, which are still in the application process, and recently agreed to purchase granted exploration licence 77/2347 from Dakota Minerals (ASX: DKO) giving the company a dominant landholding on the lake.
Parkway said this was a similar exploration model used by existing salt lake potash explorers at sites within Western Australia.
“This transaction allows PWN to accelerate its evaluation program on Lake Barlee,” Parkway Minerals managing director Patrick McManus told the Australian Securities Exchange.
“The region is very prospective as a source of potash from brines.
“Western Australia, Australia and our near regional neighbours are significant consumers of potash so there is a window of opportunity there for new local, low-cost supplies for the agricultural sector.”
AGRIMIN (ASX: AMN)
Agrimin has 100 per cent-ownership of the large-scale Mackay Sulphate of Potash project located on Western Australia’s largest salt lake covering approximately 2,784 square kilometres.
Agrimin completed a Scoping Study for the Mackay project in 2016, which indicated SOP production of 370,000 tonnes per year over a 20 year life, with average operating cash costs of US$256 per tonne Free on Board.
Production design for Mackay has SOP production commencing with brine being pumped from trenches into a series of solar evaporation ponds.
The Mackay brine deposit commences just below the surface and the Scoping Study incorporates brine extraction exclusively from trenches to a depth of only 5.5m into the lakebed.
The plan is to dry harvest the crystallised potassium salts from the ponds and feed them into a process plant.
Agrimin describe the process route as conventional, which will comprise milling, flotation, SOP crystallisation, drying and sizing.
The SOP products will be transported in bulk by road trains to a rail load-out located in Alice Springs and then railed to a port for shipment.
PLYMOUTH MINERALS (ASX: PLH)
Plymouth Minerals is excited by the potential of the company’s Banio in Gabon.
Historic drilling at the Banio project has demonstrated excellent geology, which the company considers to combine well with a supportive government, excellent logistical access to export and an identified market in South America.
The company released an Exploration Target last year defined in two areas totalling 126 square kilometres of the Banio potash project.
The potash (sylvinite and carnallitite) Exploration Target totalled 6 billion tonnes to 10.4 billion tonnes at 12 to 14 per cent potassium oxide (K2O).
This included a shallow high-grade potash (sylvinite) Exploration Target at the Alpha prospect of 262 million tonnes to 415 million tonnes at 18 to 22 per cent K2O*.
Two carnallitite targets (Ndindi North and Ndindi South) have also been defined with a combined 5.7 to 10 billion tonnes at 12 to 14 per cent K2O.
As this is an initial Exploration Target defined in two areas of the Banio potash project, Plymouth acknowledges there has been insufficient exploration completed to date to estimate a Mineral Resource in accordance with JORC 2012 guidelines and that any potential quantity and grade of the Banio Exploration Target is conceptual in nature.
VERDANT MINERALS (ASX: VRM)
Darwin-based Verdant Minerals (ASX: VRM) is developing a portfolio of phosphate and sulphate of potash (SOP) projects, located in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Verdant Mineral’s attention is on the company’s 100 per cent-owned Ammaroo phosphate project, located 180km south east of Tennant Creek and 90km from the Central Australian Railway line.
The Ammaroo phosphate project already boasts a resource of 1.145 billion tonnes of phosphate ore and an average grade of 14 per cent phosphorous pentoxide (P2O5) at a cut-off grade of 10 per cent P2O5 or 338 million at an average grade of 18 per cent P2O5 at a cut-off grade of 15 per cent P2O5.
Ammaroo is an advanced project, currently the subject of a bankable feasibility study (BFS) and associated environmental approvals process, for the development of a phosphate rock concentrate operation to produce up to two million tonnes per annum of phosphate rock concentrate for export to Asian markets.
The study and approvals process are expected to be completed in late 2017.
Verdant Minerals has flagged intentions to be freighting rock phosphate from Central Australia north to Darwin on the AustralAsia railway and then shipping it to Asia in late 2019.