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Kalium Lakes (ASX:KLL) steps up work at Beyondie project

Materials
ASX:KLL      MCAP $50.79M
09 June 2020 10:45 (AEST)
Kalium Lakes (ASX:KLL) - Managing Director, Brett Hazelden

Source: WA Business News

Kalium Lakes (KLL) is accelerating work at its Beyondie Sulphate of Potash Project (BSOPP) in WA following a $48.8 million capital raise.

The funds were raised via a placement and institutional entitlement offer. The retail component of the offer is currently open and is due to close on June 9, 2020.

The company says it will begin engaging contractors over the next few weeks to undertake a variety of work at the BSOPP, including pond construction and the installation of an 80 kilometres gas pipeline.

Development of a purification plant will also begin, as well as the construction of workshops, villages and administration facilities.

A portion of the necessary equipment for the BSOPP has already arrived at Perth, including boilers, chillers, a cooling tower and vibrating feeder, with the remaining lot due in the near future.

The manufacture and supply of additional equipment from Germany is also running to schedule, with the first shipment due to leave Hamburg this month. 

Brett Hazelden, Managing Director of Kalium Lakes, thanked the company’s staff, partners and contractors in today’s announcement, noting their resilience over the last few months.

“We have come out of the delay much stronger, focused and fully aligned to achieve completion of the BSOPP which will then contribute to a growing Australian SOP market, 100 per cent of which is currently imported from overseas, for the important agriculture sector,” Brett explained.

“With the institutional component of equity raise completed and the retail entitlement component due to close early next week, we are now able to concentrate on accelerating construction and operations works at the Beyondie SOP Project,” he added.

During the delay, Kalium Lakes took the opportunity to stockpile its brine inventory in an effort to mitigate the risk of insufficient salts. 

Brine extraction has been more or less in line with the company’s expectations over the last three months, with a total of 1.25 gigalitres pumped to date at a grade of 19.8 kilograms per cubic metre of sulphate of potash (SOP). This equates to approximately 27,000 tonnes of SOP entering the evaporation circuit in solution.

The brine extraction has only come from Kalium’s 10 Mile resource, which will be joined by the Sunshine resource in July once its pre-concentrator pond has been completed. The addition of the Sunshine resource is expected to double the company’s daily SOP production.

Kalium Lakes is currently steady on the market, with shares trading for 15.5 cents per share at 10:46 am AEST.

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