Matthew Shackleton

Australian Potash has announced the appointment of Jay Hussey to the position of Chief Commercial Officer to take charge of the company’s DFS for its Lake Wells potash project near Laverton. Mr Hussey is a fertiliser industry executive, having served 10 years as VP of China’s Migao Corporation. He has an extensive background in potash marketing, supply contracting, off-take and JV negotiations.

Australian Potash’s Yamarna gold project could host a northern extension of Gold Road Resources’ high grade gold targets to the south. This includes an anomaly similar in scale to Gold Road’s Ibanez prospect. The company is now finalising a second stage drill program that will include reverse circulation drilling to test the depth and primary mineralised structures.

ASX listed Australian Potash has appointed former WesTrac Managing Director and well known Perth businessman Jim Walker as its Non-Executive Chairman to help develop marketing and financing relationships. Former Executive Chairman Matt Shackleton has been appointed the company’s Managing Director. Australian Potash expects to release a definitive feasibility study for its Lake Wells potash project in 2019.

Australian Potash has announced it has successfully transferred brine from a pre-concentration pond into a salt harvesting pond at its Lake Wells sulphate of potash project, located near Laverton in W.A. The company will produce 250kg of refined trade samples for delivery to its MoU off-take partners during the 4th quarter of 2018. The ongoing test work will feed into the company’s DFS.

ASX listed Australian Potash has been granted the mining leases it requires to develop and operate the Lake Wells sulphate of potash project that is located 180km northeast of Laverton in the Goldfields region of W.A. The company’s field work over the next quarter will include its geotechnical program and additional work required for a reserve estimate. It plans to report the results of its DFS in 2019.

Australian Potash could enjoy better freight costs at its Lake Wells potash project thanks to a government funded upgrade of up to 100km of the Great Central Road to the east of the town of Laverton. The company will work with the Shire of Laverton to consider the feasibility of sealing the Lake Wells access road, which would give the project a 300km all-weather bitumen sealed road to the Leonora rail-head.

Australian Potash is farming out 70% of its Lake Wells gold project near Laverton, WA, to St Barbara under a $7m joint venture agreement to focus on its sulphate of potash project in the same area. St Barbara will pay the company an initial $1.25m in cash and spend at least $1.75m in exploration during the first 12 months of the deal.

Australian Potash has successfully produced its first salt products from the pilot pond network at the Lake Wells sulphate of potash project, located 180km northeast of Laverton in the Goldfields region of WA. About 20 tonnes of potassium and sulphate bearing salts are expected to be produced from the ponds once the process runs its course. These salts will be further processed to a refined sulphate of potash.

Australian Potash has successfully intersected brines in recent deep aircore drilling at its Lake Wells sulphate of potash project located near Laverton in WA. All new drill holes ended in permeable deep sand aquifers suitable for abstracting the drainable mineral commodity. The new data should allow an upgrade of the existing resources into the measured status of classification, ahead of the company’s highly anticipated DFS.

Australian Potash has harvested 11 tonnes of potassium rich salts in its first harvest pond at the Lake Wells sulphate of potash project in the Goldfields region of WA. Once the third and final evaporation step is completed, a blend of salts from all three harvest ponds will be processed to a refined a sulphate of potash product at the company’s pilot processing plant.

Australian Potash is set to benefit from a hefty reduction in WA State Government rental rates for potash brine projects as part of an initiative to help develop a new industry in the state. From the new year, rental rates for brine mining leases will be slashed from $18.70 per hectare to just $2.32 per hectare for the first five years before rising to $4.64 per hectare from the sixth year onwards.

Australian Potash has successfully transported its first raw salt products from the pilot pond network at the Lake Wells sulphate of potash project near Laverton in WA, for the processing and production of trade samples for its Chinese off-take partners. This processing work will commence immediately in the lead up to the company’s DFS for Lake Wells, which is expected in the latter half of 2019.

Australian Potash has hit a major milestone with the manufacture of high grade sulphate of potash at its pilot processing plant in Perth that exceeded its previous expectations of product quality. The 98% purity SOP product was generated from the first raw salt products from the pilot pond network at the company’s Lake Wells SOP project, located about 180km northeast of Laverton in the Goldfields region of WA.

ASX-listed Australian Potash has started final field programs in the Definitive Feasibility Study for its Lake Wells sulphate of potash project near Laverton, WA. The company will drill up to three production wells for long term pump testing to confirm flow rates and construct trial evaporation ponds to establish the optimal commercial-scale pond design, in terms of cost of construction and effectiveness of the design.

Australian Potash has started a major study into the benefits of using its sulphate of potash product over the more typically used “muriate of potash” for the growing of crops in WA. The two-year study will be a collaboration with the Western Australian No-Tillage Farmers Association and The University of Western Australia. It will compare the effects of both potassium sources on crop yield, quality, safety and value.

Australian Potash is constructing evaporation ponds to assess the most cost-efficient technique for commercial-scale ponds at its Lake Wells SOP project near Laverton, WA. The company is also drilling up to three large diameter production bores that could support a resource expansion at the project and is carrying out additional long-term pump testing to help finalise the ore reserves estimate.

Australian Potash has made its thickest intersection of productive basal sands whilst drilling two production bores at its Lake Wells sulphate of potash, or “SOP”, project near Laverton, WA. The second bore intersected 62m of high-yielding sands in the target palaeochannel and has flowed brine at indicative rates above the project requirement of 15 litres per second.

Australian Potash has flagged that it will soon upgrade mineral resources and define a maiden ore reserve at its Lake Wells sulphate of potash project near Laverton, WA, following the milestone completion of final field programs. The programs were carried out in support of the company’s ongoing definitive feasibility study, for which final documentation is currently underway.

Australian Potash has cranked up the JORC mineral resource of its Lake Wells sulphate of potash, or “SOP”, project near Laverton, WA, by 23% to 18.1 million tonnes of drainable SOP. This resource is entirely within the measured category, which gives the company a high degree of confidence that it can support its initial planned 150,000 tonne per annum project for a long, sustained period.

Australian Potash’s Lake Wells SOP project near Laverton, WA, could churn out annual pre-tax free cash flows of $100 million via the production of 150,000 tonnes of SOP per year according to its much-anticipated definitive feasibility study. Capex for the project has been estimated at $208 million including a $20 million contingency, while pre-tax net present value was estimated at $665 million.

Australian Potash has ticked off another box for its Lake Wells SOP project near Laverton, WA, signing an import-export agreement with the Port of Geraldton in the Mid West region, that underpins the FEED study underway for the project. The company’s recent DFS for Lake Wells was modelled on a road freight solution to the Geraldton port and export of its SOP product from that site.

Australian Potash has revealed that a scaled-down version of its brine concentration and potash salt crystallisation pond system has underlined the expected low-cost of the pond construction at its Lake Wells SOP project near Laverton, WA. The company recently constructed a pre-concentration brine pond and declared the trial a success, saying it performed as expected with seepage rates that will result in higher salt crystallisation.

ASX-listed Australian Potash has hit a major milestone at its Lake Wells gold project in WA, with the Perth-based company announcing the completion by St Barbara, of its expenditure commitments under the first earn-in stage of a joint venture between the two companies. St Barbara will now proceed to the second earn-in stage which requires a further $3.5 million spend.

Australian Potash has secured its first “take-or-pay” term sheet for the supply of 20,000 tonnes of “K-Brite” premium Sulphate of Potash fertiliser per annum from its Lake Wells project to massive Sydney-based chemicals and ingredients distributor, Redox who boasts sales of over A$700 million per annum. The binding term sheet runs for ten years and gives Redox exclusive distribution rights through Australia and New Zealand.

Australian Potash is moving to the due diligence phase of its application for federal funding through the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility to support the DFS for its Lake Wells SOP fertilizer project near Laverton in WA. Whilst there are no guarantees, the company said the transition from the strategic assessment phase to due diligence was a positive step in its plans for funding support at Lake Wells.

Australian Potash has remarkably penned its second offtake deal during turbulent times, securing another “take-or-pay” partner for nearly half of all its “K-Brite” premium Sulphate of Potash fertilizer to be produced annually from its WA Lake Wells project. The exceptional and binding ten-year term sheet has been agreed with Singaporean tier one, Migao International, who produced over one million tonnes of specialty fertiliser during 2019 from seven facilities across China.

Australian Potash has identified a large number of gold anomalies from a regional air core drilling program at its Lake Wells joint venture gold project located approximately 130km north-east of Laverton in WA. Drill intercepts of up to 6m at 0.327 grams per tonne gold have included anomalous levels of pathfinder elements often associated with gold mineralisation.

As Australian Potash clears the last hurdles on the pathway to production at its Lake Wells sulphate of potash project, the company has inked a third binding offtake deal with Tier 1 Mitsui & Co for 30,000 tonnes per annum of its “K-Brite” premium fertiliser. The third deal now brings the company’s total committed offtake to a remarkable 100,000tpa of the project’s 150,000 tonnes of sulphate of potash, expected to be produced annually from the West Australian mine.