Sulfate of potash (SOP) junior Kalium Lakes Ltd., Balcatta, Western Australia, recently reported it had completed its first major commissioning activity for its Beyondie SOP project, located 160 km southeast of Newman, in Western Australia.
Kalium is the second Australian SOP junior to start commissioning; late last month Salt Lake Potash (SO4) reported that it had begun commissioning of the process plant at its Lake Way SOP project near Wiluna, in Western Australia (GM March 26, p. 36).
Kalium’s commissioning activity involved the introduction of gas all the way to the delivery station near the SOP processing plant. From the delivery station, gas will be supplied through low pressure pipelines to the power station, boiler, and other process plant equipment. Commissioning of the power plant is also well advanced.
Kalium reported that overall, the Beyondie SOP project was 83 percent complete as of mid-March.
To date, over 87,000 mt of equivalent SOP has been pumped from the bore fields and trenches into the primary evaporation ponds at Beyondie. Harvesting of the potassium salts is due to start in May, and will provide the necessary feedstock for commissioning and subsequent production ramp up of the SOP purification plant, the company said.
First commercial production and inaugural sales remain on target for September 2021.
Kalium last month reported a “debottlenecking” style review of the design of the SOP purification plant, combined with performance to date from the brine supply and evaporation ponds, indicating that steady state production of at least 100,000 mt/y of SOP is achievable by mid-2022.
SO4 plans an output of 245,000 mt/y of SOP at full production from its Lake Way SOP project and is targeting full load commissioning and SOP production at Lake Way – and sales – in the June quarter.
All of the SOP fertilizer currently used in Australia is imported, with Germany’s K+S supplying around 60 percent of the import volume.