Universal Potash sought for Utah-based company

Moab-Utah Uranium Corp. said June 25 that it is taking action to change the name of the corporation to Universal Potash Corp. to more closely reflect the direction of the company moving forward. While still maintaining interests in several past-producing or highly-promising uranium projects in Utah and western Colorado, the company has been actively pursuing several potash opportunities. It has an agreement in place to purchase a total of 474,400 contiguous acres of prospective potash property in east central Alberta, on the Saskatchewan border. The company has received some of the permits derived from the applications, and anticipates receipt of the outstanding applications shortly. The company has also filed potash applications covering a total of 29,000 acres near Moab, Utah. Included in this is an exploration permit application covering a total of 3,880 acres (over 6 sections) of prospective ground northwest of Moab, and potash lease applications for a total of 7,360 acres (11-1/2 sections) of School Sections and a total of 17,760 acres (27-3/4 sections) of ground within the known potash leasing areas (KPLAs) within 3 miles of Intrepid Potash Inc.’s Cane Creek operations. All of the Utah ground applied for is within the Paradox Basin. The auction for these lease applications is anticipated to be held in mid-July. The company says the Paradox Basin, a massive salt anticline covering a large area of eastern Utah and western Colorado, contains as much as 2.0 billion tons of potash in reports from the U.S. Geological Society. Production to date has almost entirely come from the Cane Creek Mine complex operated by Intrepid, located 5 miles west of Moab, which has been in production since the mid-1960s. The property subject to the potash exploration permit applications is located immediately to the west of School Sections that have seen previous drilling for oil/gas. The company has applied for leases covering those School Sections as well. Historic drilling activity on the School Sections encountered significant intersections of both sylvite and carnallite, with sylvite values averaging near 20 percent, but ranging as high as 49 percent.