Business
Western Potash Corp Enters Project Agreement With Rural Municipality of Lajord
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Western Resources Corp. (TSX:WRX) (FSE:WR0) (“Western” or “the Company”) is pleased to announce t
About this update from Western Resources Corp
[{"type":"text","content":"VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Western Resources Corp. (TSX:WRX) (FSE:WR0) (“Western” or “the Company”) is pleased to announce that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Western Potash Corp., entered into a ‘Project Agreement’ with the Rural Municipality of Lajord (‘RM of Lajord’) for the construction and operation of Western’s Milestone Selective Solution Mining Project (“Phase l Project”). The Milestone Phase I Project is located in the RM of Lajord about 35 km southeast of Regina, Saskatchewan. In April, 2013 Western Potash was granted Environmental Impact Assessment approval from the Government of Saskatchewan for a conventional 2.8 million tonne per year potash solution mining project (‘Milestone Project’). The approval required Western Potash to enter into a Development Agreement with the RM of Lajord. The purpose of the Development Agreement was to reach a consensus between the RM of Lajord and Western Potash Corp. regarding several key aspects of the construction and operation of the initial Milestone Project, notably road access routes, waste management and site construction management. Following approval for the initial Milestone Project, commodity prices, including potash, experienced a significant downturn which made it difficult to progress the project. In response to the market challenge, Western Potash Corp re-scoped the Milestone Project to a 146,000 tonne per year Phase 1 Plant and revised the mining technique by applying the innovative horizontal cavern development and selective solution mining method. This will not only significantly reduce the per unit capex for mining construction and reduce operating costs, but is also more environmentally friendly leaving the majority of salt in-place underground resulting in no surface tailings and lower subsidence. A Class 3 (+/- 10% cost accuracy) final engineering report for the Phase 1 Project was completed by AMEC Wheeler Foster and Agapito Associates Inc. at the end of last year. We believe the successful development of the Phase l Project will provide reliable technical parameters which can be applied in a full scale 2.8 million tonne per year facility, and hence revolutionize the potash business. Given the revised technology and the rescoped project, an amendment (‘Project Agreement’) to the Development Agreement with the RM of Lajord was un...