The Michigan Strategic Fund has begun the process for the approval of a $225 million bond for Michigan Potash and Salt Co. LLC (MPSC) to build a large-scale potash and salt mining operation in Evart Township in Osceola County, Mich.
The bond would cover sewer and wastewater disposal. Final approval could come by the end of the year, according to Chris Cook, Director, Capital Access, with the Michigan Economic Development Corp., as cited by WKAR Media.
“American farmers remain beholden to foreign imports for essentially all of their potassium fertilizer required to grow healthy crops,” said MPSC Chief Development Officer Cory Christofferson, after the Sept. 27 decision. “We will address this problem by producing high-grade white potash within the Midwest demand center.”
Still more funding may be just around the corner for MPSC, as it could apply for up to $100 million from USDA’s $500 million fertilizer production grant program (see related story). Speaking about the grant program on Sept. 27, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack mentioned an unspecified Michigan facility that might be a candidate for funding, according to a report in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.
MPSC praised the USDA grant program soon after it was announced in March. “In the face of a global food and fertilizer crisis, I applaud the USDA and Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack’s leadership in confronting our nation’s dependency on foreign fertilizer imports,” said MPSC Founder and CEO Ted Pagano.
“Our farmers feed the world, yet they are wholly dependent on foreign sources of critical potash nutrients while domestic supplies are available right here at home. Michigan Potash stands ready to support American farmers by replacing one-to-one all the potash imported from Russia with domestic production from Michigan,” he added.
MPSC plans to use solution mining to initially produce 650,000 mt/y of potash and 780,000 mt/y of salt, eventually ramping up to 1 million mt/y and 1.2 million mt/y, respectively. MPSC reported earlier that full production of domestic potash from the facility is expected for 2025 (GM March 11, p. 29).
MPSC announced in April that it had executed an offtake agreement with a major US-based agricultural company to distribute 100% of the first phase of its potash production – 650,000 mt/y (GM April 8, p. 28). The offtake company was not identified by name, however, MPSC described it as a “supply chain leader in the production, processing, and global movement of the world’s food.”
MPSC said $1 billion capital investment would create more than 300 union construction jobs over a three-year period and more than 180 full-time operations positions. MPSC has been developing the project for more than a decade near the site of The Mosaic Co.’s small Hersey mine, which Mosaic closed in favor of its much larger Saskatchewan production (GM Nov. 18, 2013).