Potash West's Dinner Hill resource area gets bigger and bigger
Potash West (ASX: PWN) is encouraged by
aircore drilling at its Dandaragan Trough Project in Western Australia, which increased the
Dinner Hill mineralised area by a massive 16 square kilometres.
Drilling also confirmed significant
phosphate intercepts reported from historical exploration at
the Dambadjie and Attunga prospects and identified further shallow potash and phosphate targets.
“These results are very encouraging as they confirm the potential of the Dinner
Hill area to host a very large resource.
On 7th May the company announced an exploration target at Dinner Hill of 1 to
1.5 Billion tonnes,” managing director Patrick McManus said.
“It is also clear that the Dandaragan Trough contains a significant quantity of
phosphate, some of which is close to the surface. Our current work, looking to
optimise the recovery of Phosphates in our process flowsheet, should be
completed in the September quarter.
“There is a very significant value
upside if we are successful in this endeavour as the phosphate
makes up 25% of the project revenue stream and has the potential to increase
substantially by recovering phosphate previously lost to tailings streams.
“The region has been investigated several times for its phosphate potential and
recent developments in commodity prices warrant further investigations of this
potential.”
Analysis
The extension of the mineralised area and thicker Molecap Greensand intersected
by the new drilling at Dinner Hill is a strong indicator that a substantial
resource upgrade is on the cards when the JORC Resource for the Dinner Hill
Extended area is released next quarter.
Potash West may see further resource upgrades
from the Dambadjie and Attunga, where the combination of favourable
mining conditions and a phosphate rich horizon is encouraging.
The new exploration area also lay the foundation for further discoveries to be
made.
With the Dandaragan Trough Project’s proximity to local markets where
fertiliser is in much demand and exports markets are readily tapped thanks to
access to transportation infrastructure, Potash West is making good progress towards
developing the project.
Potash West also enjoys a unique location advantage in terms of excellent connectivity to transport facilities, infrastructure and proximity to the local markets.
As Australia currently imports most of its potash and phosphate fertiliser requirements providing Potash West with a competitive advantage over producers that have to transport the product to Australia.
