Salt Lake City, Utah-The Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration is putting up, without any guarantees, nearly 5,000 acres of potential potash lands for competitive lease bidding in Grand and San Juan Counties in southeast Utah, not far from Intrepid Potash Inc.’s mine. According to trust lands staff, the leases are in two different groups north and south of the Intrepid operation; the state does not make any recommendations that potash will be found on the lands. But, they noted, the properties lie along the Paradox Basin, which is known to yield potash and salt. Some of the units already carry oil and gas leases, and will require both lessors to come to an agreement on usage. Bids are due Thursday, Jan. 27, for opening on Monday, Jan. 31. One of those certain to be in the lease competition is Universal Potash Corp., which announced earlier this month that it will be aggressively bidding in the Utah trust lands auction, and also planned to participate in the Bureau of Land Management auctions in New Mexico Jan. 19. The Fox Island, Wash., company said it plans to target lithium as well as potash, which potentially occur together in the same salt horizons. Universal plans to re-enter abandoned oil drill sites in search of potash and lithium using modern technology not available at shut down. Previous logs will be analyzed for economical valuations for potash, as well as lithium brines, with a focus on the salt horizons containing the lithium and potash.
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