Western Potash scaling up to full production in 2020
REACHING THE MILESTONES
There seem to be at least three reasons why Western Potash named its project Milestone.
The potash solution mine, quickly ramping up toward phase one production, has been described as innovative, environmentallyfriendly and capital-efficient — due to a new-to-saskatchewan mining system and unique water usage.
Exploration of Milestone, located about 30 km southeast of Regina and near Mosaic Co.’s Belle Plaine mine, began in 2009. Since then, Western Potash has received environmental assessment approvals and forged ahead on construction.
“We’re pretty far advanced in the project,” said Fritz Venter, company president and CEO. “Engineering is essentially complete. Equipment, all of it, is on order. We have a significant amount of equipment already delivered. We’ve been doing construction from the beginning of June.
“We have most of our foundations done, all the piling is done, we’re already putting up steel and have already placed some equipment.”
In October, Western Potash had already begun partial operations, by filling its crystallization pond and pumping fluids, and was preparing to start production of its caverns, said Matthew Wood, vicepresident, Technology.
“The only thing really left is the construction of the process plant. Everything else will be in place,” he said. “Toward the end of the year, we start with what we call hot mining. In the May-june timeframe, we start with the full process in the sense of load-out and selling the product.”
Hot mining refers to the process that leads to the building up of the inventory – pulling the potash out of the cavern by pumping hot fluid into it.
“The mining component of the project is operational very early next year and by quarter three the process plant will be in operation. It will be drying and compacting the crystals that come out of the pond and actually selling them. That’s our plan, and we’re a long way toward achieving that,” said Wood.
Potash solution mines operate by injecting heated brine into the ore and drawing the solution to the surface, where it is stored in a pond before processing. What makes Milestone somewhat different is its use of a saturated sodium choride (Nacl) solution, which has both production and environmental advantages, Wood said.
“By putting salt in and only getting selective KCL (potassium chloride) out, you’re leaving all the salt behind,” said Wood. “The fluid can not take any more salt. It can only take out the KCL. We’re only taking what we need and leaving all the salt behind, so we don’t have a salt pile or a tailings pile above ground.”
Western Potash, instead of building enormous oval caverns, is also adapting some technology from another industry.
“We’re using drilling techniques from the oil and gas industry to drill just underneath the potash bed we’re targeting, so from day one, we can produce potash,” said Wood. “We’re using directional drilling to follow the potash bed instead of having to develop these huge caverns. We’ll be operational within weeks and won’t have a long ramp-up time.
“The third innovation is we’re essentially using this as a closed loop system in conjunction with a crystal pond. We have a lot of energy savings and water savings that make it very different. We’re really combining three new technologies to produce a new way of producing potash in the province.”
In addition, construction has come in at about half the cost of other solution mines.
“We’re not at the three million tonne mark in the initial phase. It’s 140,000 tonnes, so it’s about onetwentieth the size of some of the big players,” Wood said. “Even at that size, we’re very competitive in terms of our operating costs. When we scale this project up to the larger tonnages, we may be the lowestcost producer in the province.”
Water, always a crucial element in potash mining, will come from two sources. For phase one, Western Potash drilled a water well into the Mannville aquifer, containing brackish water that is neither potable nor suitable for irrigation use.
“But we couldn’t supply the next phase,” said Wood. “We have an agreement with the City of Regina for about ten or 20 times the amount of water we will need for phase two.”
Water being key infrastructure, “we wanted to be environmentally friendly. We partnered with the City of Regina so we could use recycled effluent for phase two.”
Western Potash, traded on the TSX, has hired approximately 25 local people on the operations side, while Stuart Olson, the main construction company, has employed more than 60 to 70 people on site. Another 30 people have been employed in drilling, a project that ends sometime this month.
Wood and Venter said they wanted to acknowledge the local community and its support.
“We rely on them for the local workforce and also they’re good neighbours,” said Wood. “We want to bring some of the benefits to the local community.”