Sirius Minerals, Scarborough, England, said on Nov. 5 via its subsidiary, York Potash Processing and Ports Ltd., that it has signed an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract with McLaughlin & Harvey Ltd. for the development of the company’s port handling facility at Teeside for its North Yorkshire polyhalite project.
The scope of the McLaughlin & Harvey contract includes product storage facilities for 250,000 mt, ship loading equipment, ship outload infrastructure, and the final product screening facility. Sirius said the lump sum contract price is in line with the company’s capital re-estimate, announced in September (GM Sept.7, p. 1) and the proposed schedule for the work fits in with the company’s overall project schedule. First polyhalite production currently is scheduled for toward the end of 2021.
The port handling facility will receive the company’s polyhalite fertilizer after it has been transported from the Woodsmith mine via the 37km underground mineral transport system (MTS), and processed into the finished Poly4 product at the Wilton materials handling facility.
Importantly, in the same statement, Sirius said its stage 2 financing-related procurement program for the major construction packages is nearing completion, with only the MTS fit-out scope remaining. The company has identified Vienna-based Strabag AG (GM Sept. 7, p. 1) as the preferred contractor for the MTS fit-out, and negotiations are said to be in the final stages.
Once this procurement program is complete, Sirius will be in a position to finalize the conditional debt package. The company announced in early September that it had upwardly revised the capital cost requirement of the polyhalite mining project. It put the revised stage 2 capital funding requirement to fully fund the initial 10 million mt/y development at $3.4-$3.6 billion, up from the previous estimate of $3 billion (GM Sept. 7, p. 1). The company said it is targeting a maximum of $3 billion in senior debt financing, and is exploring other options to procure the additional $400-$600 million required.