When it comes to location it doesn’t get much better than this. Western Potash Corp.’s (WPX-V) Milestone property in Saskatchewan is 35 km southeast of one of the largest producing potash solution mines in the world, Mosaic’s (MOS-N) Belle Plaine mine.
The 500-sq-km Milestone property just 25 km southeast of Regina, Sask., and also happens to adjoin both Vale’s (VALE-N) Regina potash property and potash permits held by BHP Billiton (BHP-N).
With real estate like that, Western Potash was confident that Milestone’s salt beds would deliver a solid NI 43-101 resource estimate.
The maiden estimate released on Feb. 2, has defined an indicated resource of 32 million tonnes grading an average of 28.37% potassium chloride.
In the inferred category Milestone has estimated resources of 230.3 million tonnes grading an average of 28.45% potassium chloride.
The company forecasts it will be able to move the indicated resources into the measured and indicated category early in the second quarter of the calendar year.
Western Potash believes Milestone offers competitive advantages including that it is amenable to solution mining. That method has lower capital costs, reduced engineering risks and a shorter timeline to production, the company notes on its website. Solution mining is also scalable, which means production can be scaled to demand.
In addition, Milestone has a minimum formation temperature of 62 degrees Celsius, a key factor in the economics of solution mining. A solution mine, that can access a higher formation temperature, will produce more potassium chloride in solution as the solubility of potassium increases with temperature, offering savings in capital, energy and processing costs.
At presstime Western Potash was trading at 69¢ per share.
Over the last year Western Potash has traded in a range of 22.5¢-84¢ and has 103 million shares outstanding.
Be the first to comment on "Western Potash Files Resource On Milestone"