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OPERATIONAL REVIEW
DIGGeRs & DeALeRs PReVIeW MACA.NET.AU

Potash rebound starts to flourish

Kalium Lakes appears to be overcoming
urvivors of the embattled West Australi- 400t of commercially saleable SOP, signal- its initial processing ramp-up issues
San potash scene are beginning to dream ling a potential turning point in its recovery, and is now on track for steady-state
of brighter times ahead. with an 80,000 tpa production rate expected production at its Beyondie SOP operation
Potash players seemed on the verge of a to be reached in the March 2023 quarter and
brand-new industry in early 2021 with Salt full capacity 120,000 tpa in the September
Lake Potash Ltd (SO4) and Kalium Lakes 2024 quarter. didn’t know what they didn’t know.
Ltd flying towards production, but 18 months “We are very pleased that through recent “So, in the last six months the company
on the former is in tatters and the latter is equipment testing and the production of has sat back and looked at where our short-
only just beginning to rebuild its operational SOP we have been able to validate the over- comings are and set about systematically
credentials. all process chemistry and plant design,” Kali- building organisational capability to cope
The scepticism surfaced in mid-2021 um chief executive Len Jubber said. “We are with the complexities of the project.”
as reality began to rub up against SO4 now focused on systematically addressing Potash experts were brought in from the
managing director Tony Swierizcuk’s bull- the remaining bottlenecks in the plant and US to aid the recommissioning process
ish rhetoric. Having initially said it would progressively increasing production. Plant while Jubber focused on turning the com-
beat construction schedule targets, the operations during 2022 will be variable, tak- pany into a traditional miner.
company announced in July it would miss ing into account our need to conduct further “We have set about building operational
first-year production targets following un- mechanical debottlenecking activities and control to run the bore fields and evapora-
derperformance of its processing plant and build inventory.” tion ponds in a way which is more akin to the
evaporation ponds. A failed $100 million Jubber was brought into Kalium at the end way you would run a gold or base metals
capital raising followed before the company of 2021 as the company struggled to meet mine with daily, weekly and monthly produc-
was placed into administration in November. production ramp-up targets. A highly experi- tion reports and operational and production
Kalium only narrowly survived a similar enced mine developer, builder and operator, management controls,” he said.
fate. The company declared itself Australia’s Jubber saw his initial task as obvious – make “The next few months will see us moving
first sulphate-of-potash (SOP) producer in Beyondie more like a traditional mining op- through the mechanics of testing, then into
October from its Beyondie project but was eration. steady-state production with incremental in-
quickly raising $50 million to continue com- “On the one hand, the company had done creases to production rates out to our stated
missioning activity as lower-than-expected remarkably well in bringing a project all the targets for 2023 and beyond. That will be
potassium salt feed grades hampered the way through full construction in a new in- achieved from increasing harvesting of salts
ramp-up of the processing plant. dustry with things that had not been done from the ponds, improving our organisation-
Issues continued through the December before,” Jubber explained to Paydirt. “But al capability and debottlenecking the plant.”
and March quarters but on May 31, Kalium it was the operational readiness and expe- In parallel, Jubber is intent on communi-
announced the successful validation of the rience which was not there when the com- cating the Kalium story more effectively, but
process design had led to the production of pany was confronted with challenges, they it is far from a shallow marketing push.

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