PRL Media/news, page-213

It's an article in the Fin Rev about Sulphate of Potash production -how its taking off to become a major new business in Australia.

salt, potash, mineral sands to be produced using hydrogen

PRL the company intends to produce salt and potash using the energy from the planned HyEnergy installation.

It expects that the Gascoyne project may be able to use an “inexhaustible” seawater resource to be turned into concentrates through solar and wind evaporation and, as a result, be able to sustainably produce salt and potash ready to meet growing global demand.

It says the Gascoyne region has an ideal climate in which to produce salt — high temperatures, high winds, low rainfall and low humidity.

It has been a proven salt producing region since the 1960s, and Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) and Mitsui operate five large West Australian salt operations there, producing up to 13 million tonnes a year.

The company noted that there has been no new large Australian project in the past 20 years.

Production of sulphate of potash (SoP) from brines is another objective.

Province says there is “no current SoP production in Australia while other development projects are all based on inland lake brines with around 800km road transport to third party ports”.