LIGHTS are on at the Beyondie Sulphate of Potash (SoP) fertiliser project 160 kilometres south east of Newman with the commissioning of Kalium Lakes Ltd's (KLL) processing plant about to begin.
KLL told the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) last Friday its power station, consisting of three 2.5Mw gas engines, had been commissioned and performance tested and would provide power for commissioning of the processing plant, starting in the next few weeks.
Construction of the standard grade SoP plant was in its final stages with focus on piping, electrical and instrumentation works and erection of a granulation plant is on schedule and will be completed when the first standard grade SoP is ready for granulation, KLL told the ASX.
As well, 10,000 tonnes of halite - rock salt - had been harvested and used to seal haul roads between solar evaporation ponds and the fertiliser processing plant and potassium mixed salts harvesting is continuing in preparation for product commissioning, KLL said.
It said more than 93,000 tonnes of SoP contained in brine from beneath the crusts on the Beyondie chain of Little Sandy Desert salt lakes had been pumped into primary evaporation ponds since 2019 from a bore field and salt-lake surface trenches.
A run-of-mine pad has been completed and sealed with halite and potassium salts were being harvested and stockpiled on the pad ready for commissioning of the processing plant and a start of production.
Commercial production of SoP fertiliser is on track for September, KLL said.
KLL chief executive officer Rudolph van Niekerk said having power generated at its own power station was a major step in preparing for commercial production.
"This milestone, combined with harvesting activities that are in full swing and an operations team that is ready for production, represents a major step forward and significantly de-risks the project in meeting its first production target," Mr van Niekerk said.
"Importantly the Beyondie SoP project remains on budget and on schedule to achieve first SoP sales next quarter.
"Completion of the standard grade SoP plant is being prioritised and this will be closely followed by completion of the compaction plant, which will use standard SoP to produce granular SoP."
Pre-concentrator ponds covering 60 hectares, sodium chloride ponds covering 163ha and primary potassium ponds covering 57ha, have been completed and the evaporation and recycling pondage system is 93pc complete, KLL said in its ASX update.
As previously reported in Farm Weekly, KLL, which has a 10-year distribution and sale agreement with Germany-based global fertiliser producer and marketer K+S for all of its 90,000 tonnes per annum start-up fertiliser volume, will be Australia's second WA-based SoP fertiliser company into production.
SO4 is three months in front and already into the commissioning stage of its processing plant at its fast-tracked SoP fertiliser project at Lake Way, 12km south of Wiluna.
"Plant commissioning flying along at Lake Way, now over 50 per cent complete and ready to start feeding the beast full time in coming weeks," S04 chief executive officer and managing director Tony Swiericzuk posted on Linkedin last week.
"Site teams doing a fantastic job bringing this new industry on line in record time," he posted.
Mr Swiericzuk said training of production crews was progressing and the first potassium salt samples had been tested in the onsite laboratory.
SO4 is on target to begin producing powdered SoP fertiliser next month, opening up a new and expected to be lucrative import-replacing export business for WA-produced SoP fertiliser.
Currently, all of the SoP fertiliser used in Australia is imported and initial production estimates from both SO4 and KLL are more than double the domestic requirement.
Both are predicting at least a 30-year production life span from their existing operations and neither has factored China significantly into their current export plans.
China is the world's largest SoP fertiliser producer, but uses a method which is not environmentally friendly for a large proportion of its production volume.
As China moves towards its stated target of being carbon neutral by 2060, its ability to produce and export SoP fertiliser in current volumes is expected to be diminished.
- Strike Energy has told the ASX it is striving to be Australia's first zero emissions domestic gas producer by 2030, using carbon credits from its proposed $2.3 billion Project Haber ammonia and urea fertiliser plant at Geraldton.
Phase one of its Greater Erregulla gas and geothermal energy project about 120 kilometres south of Geraldton at Arrowsmith East and tapping into the Perth Basin natural gas resource, could begin producing gas as early as 2023 and was expected to emit 48,000tpa of carbon dioxide, Strike told the ASX last week.
Phase two in 2024-25 would lift carbon dioxide emission by about a further 180,000tpa, it said.
Project Haber, announced earlier this year and reported in Farm Weekly, proposes to convert natural gas, piped from its Greater Erregulla wells to Geraldton, to ammonia.
Manufacturing 1.4mtpa of urea fertiliser - a source of nitrogen widely used in broadacre agriculture - from the ammonia and a blended input of blue and green hydrogen, will consume the majority of carbon from the gas stream and enable partial chemical sequestration of its projects' carbon output, Strike said.
Carbon abatement, estimated to be equivalent to 650,000-795,000tpa of environmental carbon dioxide, was associated with its Project Haber ammonia and urea production using its natural gas at Geraldton, it said.
"Project Haber is the enabler for Strike to make the ambitious target of achieving net zero scope one and two emissions by 2030," said Strike managing director and chief executive officer Stuart Nichols.
"This commitment epitomises the broader value proposition of Strike's downstream integrated strategy.
"Strike continues to set the pace for the industry as it positions itself as a responsible and sustainable energy and fertiliser manufacturing company of the future," Mr Nichols said.
Strike has an option to lease 60ha of land for its urea plant in the State government's Narngulu Industrial Estate and its fertiliser proposal also has a project life span of at least 30 years.
A final investment decision on the project is expected in early 2023.
