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Lake Throssell and Lake Rason SoP pro- is driving our investors’ interest.” from Wyndham port, Savich is certain that
jects, might just be starting its journey in Avid SoP followers expect the current the large, global fertiliser outfits are slowly
WA, however, the assets have the poten- 7 mtpa market to grow, with 3 mtpa set to realising that despite the remoteness of
tial to shape up in the ilk of Beyondie, Lake come online in Australia alone in the next some of the projects in WA logistics is not
Way, Mackay (Agrimin Ltd) and Lake Wells decade. a barrier to production.
(Australian Potash Ltd (APC)). Agrimin managing director Mark Savich “All the companies in WA have over-
“I think one of the primary drivers to the believes that over time a deeper SoP mar- come the logistics challenges. Certainly,
value equation with the WA SoP develop- ket will develop, and he expects seaborne that was one of the challenges in promoting
ment is that all of us here have projects trade to increase above the current 2-3 the projects to large fertiliser companies; I
that are all basically solar salt production; mtpa. think the key messaging to global partners
get the brine, evaporate it, get the excess Helping the industry mature will be a is around reliability, affordability and sus-
water off it, crystallise out the salts and standardised SoP price, Savich said. tainability of seaborne SoP,” Savich said.
separate the salts,” APC managing direc- “That would be great for industry, in my While there is great potential opportunity
tor Matt Shackleton said. opinion, and it will allow us to get the best to target WA SoP to markets overseas, the
“However, 55% of the world’s production price for our products in competition with opportunity to supply domestic users is not
is not produced that way, it is produced the rest of the world,” Savich said. being discounted.
through an industrial process; they are “In the last decade we have the accept- Meanwhile, developing skillsets within
much higher energy [intensive] projects. ance of SoP in China. Historically, SoP the WA SoP space will inevitably happen
“All of us here have solar salt projects, was a very niche form of fertiliser predomi- as the sector grows.
we do not require an industrial process nantly used in Europe and US and on the “I think we are all on the same page and
and that gives us a compelling cost of back of developing some very large SoP know that Australia uses 70,000 tpa SoP
production advantage. We will all sit in the projects in the early 2000s China went and 400,000 tpa of MoP and all of that is
lower quartile of production on the cost from no SoP production to 3.5 mtpa; half imported, so there has always been an op-
curve because Mannheim producers will the world’s supply today. portunity for a local producer,” Kalium chief
always be higher. That for me drives the “That drove a significant level of interest executive Rudolph van Niekerk said.
fundamental value behind this industry in that potentially demand for SoP could ex- “For us, one of the biggest challenges
WA which is why I can see it becoming sig- pand in other regions like India, Malaysia, has always been IP, it is not like you can
nificant in this state. Brazil but they all need reliable and afford- walk down St Georges Terrace and find-
“It is early stages in this state but you able supply. I guess WA being the best ing an engineer who knows how to design
can see it becoming globally significant exporting place on the planet we are very evaporation ponds and process plants.
because we are going to beat the biggest well positioned for mass seaborne supply Being able to find the right people, the right
producer – China – and is one of the rare into the market.” IP, the right benchmark is just critical.”
occasions where we can beat them on Having spent the best part of six years
costs. That is what is going to be driving and $40 million advancing and delivering – Mark Andrews
investor interest and that is certainly what a DFS on the Mackay SoP project, 840km

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT DeCeMBeR 2020 - JaNUaRY 2021 Page 17