Australian restructuring firm McGrathNicol, which put sulfate of potash (SOP) junior Kalium Lakes Ltd. into receivership last month, confirmed on Sept. 21 that it has agreed to the sale of Kalium’s Beyondie SOP project in Western Australia to fellow SOP developer Agrimin Ltd. on undisclosed terms.
In a statement, McGrathNicol said it has entered into a Share Sale Agreement with Agrimin for the sale of Kalium Lakes’ subsidiaries, Kalium Lakes Potash and Kalium Lakes Infrastructure. These entities comprise all of the operations and employees of the Kalium Lakes group.
The deal remains subject to capital raising by Agrimin to fund the transaction. If all conditions are satisfied, completion of the sale is anticipated in early November 2023.
Kalium collapsed into receivership in early August after it failed to find further financial support for the continued development of its Beyondie SOP project, located some 160 kilometers southeast of Newman in Western Australia (GM Aug. 18, p. 1).
Kalium produced its first batch of SOP at Beyondie in October 2021, making it Australia’s first SOP producer (GM Oct. 8, 2021). Since then, it had been producing SOP in small batches and had been targeting annual production of 90,000-100,000 mt/y of SOP. Despite last year’s high SOP prices, however, the company remained cash-flow negative.
Nedlands-based Agrimin, which is developing its own SOP project, intends to initially transition the Beyondie project to a period of “care and maintenance” to undertake its own assessment of the ongoing requirements of the project, according to the McGrathNicol statement. Agrimin’s plan is then for a targeted restart of brine field and pond operations in mid-2024, with the intention of a plant restart in the first half of 2025.
The SOP junior is developing the Mackay Potash Project, located some 940 kilometers from the northern Western Australia port of Wyndham. It is targeting a planned production capacity of 450,000 mt/y of SOP at Mackay and has offtake agreements secured for around 70% of the planned output (GM April 8, 2022).