Australian sulfate of potash (SOP) project developer Agrimin Ltd. has pulled out of the share sale agreement reached last month for Kalium Lakes Ltd.’s assets, which included the Beyondie SOP project in Western Australia (GM Sept. 22, p. 29).
“Agrimin on Oct. 3 gave notice of termination of the Share sale Agreement due to non-satisfaction of a condition precedent, and thereby terminating the contract in accordance with its terms,” said restructuring firm McGrathNicol, Kalium Lakes’ receiver and administrator, in an Oct. 4 ASX announcement.
A key condition, among several, was a capital raise by Agrimin to fund the transaction. Following the notice of termination from Agrimin, McGrathNicol said the receivers are now pursuing a number of alternatives for Kalium Lakes.
At the time of the announcement of the share sales agreement, McGrathNicol noted that Agrimin was intending to initially transition the Beyondie project, located some 160 kilometers southeast of Newman in Western Australia, to a period of “care and maintenance” in order to undertake an assessment of the ongoing requirements of the project.
The Nedlands-based SOP developer’s plan then was to target a restart of the brine field and pond operations in mid-2024, with the intention of a plant restart in the first half of 2025 and subsequent expansion.
Kalium collapsed into receivership in early August (GM Aug. 18, p. 1) after it failed to find further financial support for the continued development of Beyondie. The project produced its first batch of SOP in October 2021, making Kalium Australia’s first SOP producer (GM Oct. 8, 2021).
Since then, the company had been producing SOP in small batches. As recently as this past June, Kalium was targeting an SOP production rate of 55,000 mt/y in FY2024 (GM June 16, p. 29).