Vancouver-Atacama Minerals Corp. plans a major expansion at the company’s Aguas Blancas industrial minerals mine located in northern Chile. In addition to iodine, the Aguas Blancas mine hosts extensive nitrate resources. A positive feasibility study on the development of these large nitrate resources has recently been completed. The board of directors has approved development, which will include construction of a US$60 million nitrate fertilizer plant designed to initially produce 70,000 mt of nitrate fertilizer per year. The nitrate fertilizer plant will process the nitrate salt-bearing brine solution produced from the current iodine operations. A portion of the evaporation ponds for recovery of the nitrate salts has already been constructed and is being prepared for future nitrate salt recovery. The new plant will have the capability to produce three different specialty fertilizer products ?Çô potassium nitrate, sodium nitrate, and sodium potassium nitrate. Engineering, construction, and start-up of the new plant are estimated to take up to 27 months. Permitting and infrastructure are already in place, and a new power line that facilitates this expansion was inaugurated in April of this year. Atacama notes that recent potassium nitrate contracts have been priced in excess of US$1,000/mt. “The fertilizer market has entered a new period of significant growth and global consumption,” said Edward Posey, Atacama’s President and CEO. “The timing is very opportune for Atacama to develop the fertilizer potential of the Aguas Blancas mine. Atacama has established itself as a long-term, reliable supplier of high quality iodine to the world market. The company will now enter a major new growth phase as an important new supplier of specialty nitrate fertilizers.”
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