What the company does
Salt Lake Potash Ltd (ASX:SO4) (LON:SO4) (OTCMKTS:WHELF) has been making rapid progress at its flagship sulphate of potash (SOP) project, Lake Way, in the Western Australian Goldfields.
The Perth-based company has now secured debt and equity finance for the development of hte project.
The plan is to develop a 245,000 tonnes per year sulphate of potash operation.
EBITDA is likely to be A$111mln per year.
Lake Way would have one of the lowest operating costs for global SOP producers.
What does the managing director say?
Managing director Tony Swiericzuk, who was appointed last year, has hailed the fundraisings over the last year as putting Salt Lake Potash "on the critical path to enabling SO4 to become the first Australian commercial producer of SOP in a global sector with outstanding potential".[hhmc]
The company will utilise the funds it raised from high-quality investors as it pursues a busy work program at Lake Way and two other lake projects.
Lake Way is in WAs Northern Goldfields area near Wiluna, a town featured in Phillip Noyces award-winning film Rabbit-Proof Fence.
Lake Way has a mix of tenements — which the company owns 100% of, and the old Williamson open pit ground at Lake Way held by Wiluna gold miner Blackham Resources.
In July 2019, Salt Lake Potash consolidated the tenement package through a sales agreement with Blackham, acquiring a package of tenements and securing access to power and process water rights, providing synergies for the project, including capital and operating cost savings
READ: Salt Lake Potash to benefit from WA government initiative for development of potash industry
First evaporation ponds have been in action for a while now
At the end of July 2019, Salt Lake Potash confirmed it had completed construction of its first two commercial-scale evaporation ponds and has begun pumping of sulphate of potash (SOP) brine.
The Williamson ponds are the first operational-scale SOP evaporation ponds built on a salt lake in Australia, which Swiericzuk has said are an important part of the staged de-risking and development at Lake Way.
Commissioning of the processing plant is expected by the end of 2020, utilising salts from the Williamson Pit brine.
Salt Lake and Blackham's tenements at Lake Way, a brine-lake project once part of the company's wider Goldfields Salt Lakes Project
A Native Title Mining Agreement to provide consent to the grant of SLPs mining lease and for the ongoing mining operation is expected to be signed “in the coming months”, the company said in July.
Australia's Environmental Protection Agency has also ruled that a formal assessment is not required for SLPs initial on- and off-lake works.
Beefed up senior executive and project execution teams
Former Fortescue Metals executive of nine years Swiericzuk joined Salt Lake on November 5.
The respected mining engineer has a reputation for building and operating projects and was the general manager of Christmas Creek iron ore mine in the Pilbara region for the major Australian producer FMG chaired by high-profile Australian entrepreneur Andrew Forrest.
During Swiericzuks early years at FMG he oversaw the groups port operations at a key port in the Pilbara region, Port Hedland, as it ramped up from 20 to 80 million tonnes a year.
READ: Salt Lake Potash secures $13 million to advance sulphate of potash project[hhmc]
Swiericzuk took a close look at the company before joining it, saying in October: “A deep dive into Salt Lake Potashs high-quality technical work, business model and relationships has convinced me that it is easilyRead More – Source
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