Western's potash project passes another milestone
BY BRUCE JOHNSTONE, LEADER-POST APRIL 3, 2012
The official notice of the start of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process for Western Potash's proposed solution potash mine, near Lajord, 35 km southeast of Regina, was issued by the Ministry of Environment last week.
But the Vancouver-based junior resource company has been working on assessing the environmental impact - as well as the economic impact and technical feasibility of the $2.8-billion, 2.8-million tonne per year mine - for years.
"Quite frankly, we've known that we need to do an environmental impact assessment and we've been working on that for two years now,'' said Greg Vogelsang, manager of environmental and regulatory affairs for Western Potash Corp.
In fact, Western submitted its project proposal to the environment ministry in October - outlining the details of the Milestone potash project, which is located in the RM of Lajord between Gray and Riceton.
The proposal indicated that the plant would re-quire 400 litres of water per second for solution mining, which uses water and chemicals to extract potash from the Prairie Evaporite formation.
Vogelsang said the company is negotiating with the City of Regina to use treated waste water in the solution mining process.
"It's all addressed in the EIA and we're spending a lot of time to do that right,'' Vogelsang said. Western's Environmental Impact Study (EIS) will include baseline studies ("to find what's there before anything's developed") and an outline of the project's demands and requirements in terms of land and water.
"From that, you design (the project) around minimizing the impacts.''
Vogelsang, a University of Regina graduate who joined Western in 2010, said the company plans to have the EIS submitted by mid-August, followed by a regulatory and public review, which will probably take another four or five months.
"We're very comfortable with the process, we're very familiar with the process. There are no surprises here.''
Western wants to get the project under way by the first quarter of 2013, with production to begin by late 2015 or early 2016.
If approved, the project would employ 1,500 during peak construction and 300 to 350 when in full commercial operation.
John Costigan, vice-president of corporate development for Western, said the project cost has increased from $2.5 billion in the initial project proposal to $2.75 billion, including the roughly $300-million cost of building a port facility. Since Western is not currently a potash producer, it doesn't belong to Canpotex, the offshore marketing agency for the three Saskatchewan potash companies - PotashCorp, Mosaic and Agrium.
And Western is also looking for a partner to help develop the Milestone project.
Costigan said the ideal partner would have financial resources, demand for the product and the desire to own production. Now that both Russia (Acron) and Brazil (Vale) are in Saskatchewan, that leaves two so-called BRIC countries on the outside looking in. "China has money, India has money.''
Costigan added solution mining is "the most efficient way of mining potash in the world.'' And with natural gas - the main energy source for solution mining - currently trading at historic lows, "we become a very low-cost producer for the foreseeable future.''
Plus Saskatchewan and Canada are stable jurisdictions, with little or no political risk.
"We're sitting on world-class deposit with some of the lowest operating costs in the world. It's a very attractive proposition.''
bjohnstone@leaderpost.com
http://www.leaderpost.com/touch/technology/story.html?id=640…
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