Kore Potash provides project update

Highlights:

Dougou Extension (DX) Pre-feasibility Study

• Pre-feasibility study (PFS) on track to be completed on budget in April 2020 with potentially improved financial outcomes.
• Technical studies completed to date have identified a number of improvements over the scoping study with potential to reduce both the capital cost and the operating cost of the project compared to the scoping study. These include:
• Circulating brine flow rates can be reduced by approximately 40%
• Potential to reduce electrical power requirement by up to 8%
• Potential to reduce gas requirements by up to 40%
• Cavern footprint is able to be increased by up to 27%
• Life of project extraction ratio may be increased with potential to increase initial project life to 25 years.
• Processing of the 2D seismic survey data has reinforced and improved upon earlier interpretations of the sylvinite boundaries within the deposit.

Kola project optimisation

• Kola Bill of Quantities (BoQ) exercise identified capital savings in excess of US$300 million in comparison to the Definitive Feasibility Study capital cost.
• Discussions with European engineering and construction groups indicates that further optimisation activity (including design revisions) is likely to generate additional capital cost reductions.
• With current focus on the development of the lower capital cost DX project, the Company will continue to explore options to reduce the Kola capital cost but is not planning further expenditure on the optimisation of Kola in the near term.

Brad Sampson, Chief Executive of Kore Potash, said: “This positive progress on the DX pre-feasibility study is very pleasing to see, the Company is progressing high quality work to improve our understanding of the deposit and the chosen processing route.

Shifting Kore’s focus onto a smaller, less capital intensive project within the wider Sintoukola basin should allow the Company to get to production faster and preserves optionality on the other deposits. We believe that DX is one of the highest grade potash deposits anywhere in the world. This is part of the reason why we will have extremely competitive operating costs, further reinforced by our proximity to the coast and commensurately lower shipping costs to target markets than Northern Hemisphere producers.

Our focus continues to centre on building a project that is environmentally and economically sustainable, which is particularly important as we work on issues related to project design.”

Read the article online at: https://www.worldfertilizer.com/potash/18122019/kore-potash-provides-project-update/