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Salt Lake thinks big

with Lake Way development

he coronavirus pandemic has done lit- port despite the current global conditions de-risking is well advanced ahead of the
Ttle to halt Salt Lake Potash Ltd’s pro- reinforce Swiericzuk’s argument that Lake major works around the processing plant
gress on its Lake Way potash develop- Way represents a unique opportunity in construction.
ment project in Western Australia. the Australian resources space; a robust “The big spend will be putting the big
While the global pandemic has strangled commodity combined with a low-cost Lego pieces together later in the year and
most of the international economy with a capex and opex scenario. Q3 and Q4 will see a very fast build,” Swi-
vice-like grip, Salt Lake (SO4) continued “Potash has a great thematic. The agri- ericzuk said.
its serene progress at Lake Way, near culture sector is strong and fertiliser prices Project development has become in-
Wiluna in the Northeastern Goldfields. have been incredibly resilient in the face creasingly difficult as governments impose
In April, the company completed civil of the coronavirus,” he said. “Lake Way, more stringent restrictions on movement
earthworks at its processing plant site, like all the brine producers in Australia and but according to Swiericzuk Lake Way’s
paving the way for plant construction which around the world, will be in the lowest cost timetable has not be delayed by the pan-
is due for completion by the end of 2020. quartile. And, it is smothered by infrastruc- demic.
Speaking to Paydirt in April, SO4 man- ture with the Goldfields pipeline and high- “It is an opportune time in our schedule
aging director Tony Swiericzuk said the way on the edge of the lake and the Wiluna for this to occur. We finished Stage 2 on-
company was on target to hit its own ambi- township and airstrip within 15km. lake civils in early February and the off-lake
tious deadlines. “It is very attractive from a support in- civils in April. So, we are in a period of fi-
“We want to be commissioning the plant frastructure perspective, which is helping nalising engineering and procurement and
by the end of 2020,” Swiericzuk said. fast-track the project and supports the low then we will be in baseline operation of the
SO4 is already well advanced with Lake capex and opex numbers.” ponds.”
Way’s development. It began construction SO4’s decision to stage Lake Way’s If SO4 can stick to its development time-
of the on-lake solar evaporation ponds and construction has been assisted by the pot- line, Lake Way could be commissioning by
trenches in early 2019 and by the beginning ash development process which allows for the end of the year.
of 2020 had 400ha of brines under sun. sequencing. “It is a simple flowsheet and product and
These ponds will produce the feed for the “A potash project is very different to a we have done plenty of trials with our har-
processing plant. metals project. It is a more spaced time- vest salts and been through different labs
“We have got more than 50% of our frame than a traditional metals project and and flowsheets and circuits and got some
on-lake delivery – trenching and ponds we intentionally set about fast-tracking the fantastic results in terms of quality,” Swier-
– completed,” Swiericzuk said. “Now we project by staging it. That means we could iczuk said.
are faced with the plant and NPI which will get the long-lead task of precipitation out “This management team has done a few
roughly cost $100 million. We completed of the way early,” Swiericzuk said. commissioning projects together and we
the civil earthworks for the plant site and “The first stage was to get brine as fast know you’ll always have little bumps along
have locked in a lot of the long-lead items as we could under sun because that is the road, but this is not a technical plant;
on fixed lump sum terms.” how we make ore. The salts precipitate there are no high temperatures or pressure
SO4 raised $20 million via a placement out and that’s basically your orebody so or acid. So, we are expecting a rapid ramp-
in April to provide further cash reserves for you are creating a ROM feed. We started up. We plan for a rapid ramp-up and then
the next stage of construction. that process in January 2019 and hit the halve the schedule for your internal target.”
The capital raising was the fourth in the ground running. Stage 1 was construc- Once Lake Way is up and running, SO4
past 15 months, bringing the total of funds tion of 125ha of solar evaporation ponds can turn attention to the other eight lakes it
raised to more than $76 million. In addition, which have been under sun since March has in its WA portfolio.
the company has a $US165 million debt fa- last year and by December we completed “We are laser focused on Lake Way, we
cility with Taurus Funds Management. Stage 2, a further 275ha.” want to get that built, get cashflow going
SO4’s ability to attract financier sup- The staged approach has meant project and get the balance sheet in order,” Swier-
iczuk said. “Once we do that, we can look
at other things. This is a multiple lake port-
folio and while I jokingly say we’re going
to create the Pilbara of potash, the nine-
lake portfolio we have does lend itself to
creating a SOP province. Building ponds
and trenches is all control-C/control-V
stuff. We now understand the optimum
methodology and how to construct them
fast and cheaply. The plant is the same,
off-the-shelf, so we will gladly be stepping
across other lakes as the market can take
the product.”
– Dominic Piper

SO4 started on-lake construction in March 2019 as part
of its staged approach to Lake Way’s development
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT MaY 2020 Page 29