Kalium Lakes Receives Environmental Approval for Beyondie

Kalium Lakes (ASX:KLL) has received environmental approval from the Australian government for its Beyondie sulfate of potash (SOP) project.

The approval comes from the Commonwealth Department of the Environment and Energy, and covers the abstraction of potassium-rich brine associated with the Sunshine and Ten Mile lakes, located 160 kilometers southeast of Newman in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. It also lends approval to the production of SOP through solar evaporation.

“Kalium Lakes continues to lead the way as the first SOP project in Australia to obtain Ministerial approval under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act,” Kalium Managing Director Brett Hazelden said in a statement.

“This is another significant milestone for the Beyondie SOP project and adds to the growing list of achievements required to get a new project and a new industry started in Australia.”

The decision covers Beyondie’s stage 1 area, which is laid out in the project’s bankable feasibility study (BFS), completed in September 2018.

“As an important regulatory approval this decision, together with the anticipated further final approvals due in coming months, reinforces the key elements of the comprehensive BFS completed during September last year associated with [Beyondie’s] 30-50 year mine life,” Hazelden added.

Kalium had predicts in the BFS that commissioning and ramp up to Beyondie’s nameplate throughput — 164,000 tonnes per year — will take place by 2020.

The project’s ore reserves total 5.14 million tonnes of SOP at 12,400 milligrams per liter of potassium sulfate, with its mineral resource coming in at 19.6 million tonnes of SOP at 12,434 milligrams per liter of potassium sulfate.

The company’s plans for this quarter include housekeeping duties like finalizing front-end engineering and design work, completing other regulatory assessments and approvals and finalizing a binding offtake agreement with K+S (ETR:SDF).

Kalium came together with the German fertilizer producer for a 10-year offtake agreement in June 2018; it will see Kalium supply 75,000 tonnes of SOP from Beyondie per year to K+S. Since then, K+S has completed its technical due diligence review on Beyondie.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Olivia Da Silva, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.