A SECOND prospective Western Australian Sulphate of Potash (SoP) fertiliser producer and exporter has gained State environmental approval for a remote salt lake brine processing operation.
Environment Minister Stephen Dawson last week granted Reward Minerals Ltd (RWD) environmental approval allowing works on up to 7776 hectares on and to the immediate north of Lake Disappointment, a 33,000ha salt lake near the junction of the Canning Stock Route and Talawana Track, about 340 kilometres east of Newman in the Little Sandy Desert.
A drawn out environmental approvals process took four years to complete and included an appeal by the Wetlands Conservation Society against an Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) draft decision to recommend approval.
The usually dry Lake Disappointment, named by explorer Frank Hann in 1897 after he saw it from the nearby McKay Range and initially thought it contained water, is an important breeding ground for many species of waterbird.
Mr Dawson's approval specifically directs RWD to "avoid where possible, otherwise minimise" any impacts to populations of waterbirds breeding at Lake Disappointment and to fauna listed under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016.
This includes the extremely rare night parrot, thought to be extinct prior to 1979 but now known to be in the area.
RWD must also protect riparian vegetation along McKay Creek, which runs into Lake Disappointment in wet years and protect stygofauna species - animals that live in groundwater - and their habitat.
The first of six WA companies over the past decade to begin investigating the potential of hypersaline brine beneath remote salt lakes to produce SoP, RWD is proposing to process up to 400,000 tonnes per annum of fertiliser over a 20 year period.
It plans to use a network of low-cost surface trenches to collect on average up to 63 gigalitres of brine a year and to build evaporation ponds and harvest salts stockpiles on the flat lake surface to minimise costs, but it will still take an estimated $451 million to get to start up.
Fertiliser products are proposed to be trucked in four-trailer road trains to Port Hedland for export.
RWD chief executive officer Greg Cochran said environmental approval was "the most significant milestone to date" for the Lake Disappointment project.
"Having been assessed at the most detailed level of all the WA SoP projects, this is testimony to the tireless efforts of our team of highly experienced consultants and the challenging, yet always professional engagement we had with EPA regulators throughout the four-year assessment," Mr Cochran said.
"In achieving this milestone Lake Disappointment has become only the second WA SoP project to be approved.
"This approval comes during a tumultuous time when we are, as a nation, facing substantial economic challenges and it's great to be one tangible step closer to the development of Australia's largest high-grade SoP deposit.
"We remain optimistic that Commonwealth environmental approval for the project will be forthcoming in the near future."
Mr Cochran pointed out State and Commonwealth environmental assessments began simultaneously.
"The project also meets the Australian government's desire to encourage investment and development to create much-needed jobs, particularly in remote regions," he said.
A RWD wholly-owned subsidiary, Holocene Pty Ltd, also has a $2 million farm-in and joint venture agreement with FMG Resources Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fortescue Metals Group, which gives it rights to any potash and magnesium deposits discovered on tenements in the McKay Range immediately to the north of Lake Disappointment.
The only other prospective WA SoP producer and exporter to have obtained environmental approvals for its project is Kalium Lakes Ltd (KLL).
As previously reported, KLL was on target to become Australia's first commercial SoP producer by the end of this year, until it discovered a $61m shortfall in funding caused partly by cost over-runs and underestimated difficulty in getting its Beyondie project, also in the Little Sandy Desert but 160 kilometres south east of Newman, into production.
KLL last week advised the Australian Securities Exchange it had raised $48.8m to cover part of the shortfall by share and entitlements issues to institutional investors.
It expects the remainder to be raised by retail share and entitlement issues this week.
The first shipment of components for its prefabricated processing plant is expected to leave Hamburg, Germany, this month, KLL said, with other equipment such as boiler, chiller, cooling tower, stacker and vibrating feeder having already left or about to leave for Perth.
Completion of the initial Beyondie project and commissioning of the processing plant has been put back to August or September next year.
In the meantime, KLL has continued evaporating brine with a total of 1.25 gigalitres pumped from 10-Mile Lake at an average SoP content of 19.8 kilograms per cubic metre - equivalent to about 27,000 tonnes of SoP in suspension entering the evaporation circuit.
Pumping from the next lake in a chain of lakes - Sunshine Lake - is expected to come online next month after lining of a pre-concentrator pond is completed and will double the brine extraction rate.
The initial production target for the Beyondie project is 90,000tpa of SoP fertilisers for domestic and international markets, ramping up to 180,000tpa, with an expected project life of 30-35 years.
Current front runner in the race to be Australia's first SoP producer and exporter, Salt Lake Potash (SO4) with its fast-tracked project at Lake Way, 25 kilometres south of Wiluna, has yet to obtain environmental approval for its full project.
SO4 is conducting a series of studies into the likely impact on waterbirds, plants and animals - including stygofauna - and has been liaising with the EPA which has determined the scope of the project requires environmental assessment without public review.
Provided there are no unforeseen problems, SO4 expects Mr Dawson to grant environmental approval later this year.
About 400ha of evaporation ponds, 35 kilometres of brine abstraction trenches across Lake Way, an accommodation village and a site pad for SoP processing equipment have been completed under conditional environmental approval as part of Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety and Department of Water and Environment Regulation works approvals to establish a mine site.
But SO4 will need EPA and Mr Dawson's approval to operate the site as a commercial SoP producer.
SO4 is aiming to produce its first commercial powder SoP fertiliser in the first quarter next year and ramp up production to 245,000tpa by the end of the year.
