Sorry @Barry81, but I cannot let your post regarding Centrex go...

Sorry @Barry81, but I cannot let your post regarding Centrex go unchallenged.

Centrex will find; as has every other would-be DSO phosphate producer, that with some minor variations, the geology of the Georgina basin phosphates is pretty uniform.

One of its (undesirable) characteristics is that it has very high silica levels. With the P2O5 grades they are quoting, they will likely have in excess of 40% SiO2. Just for good measure, it will also have high R2O3 (that is Al2O3 + Fe2O3) probably around the 5% mark, and possibly higher.

The silica level alone, makes a DSO product unsaleable.

Phosphate Hill manages to deal with it because it, a) beneficiates the ore to increase the P2O5 grade and reduce the SiO2 and R2O3 content, and b) they designed the back end of the plant to handle the high silica levels.

By the way, the industry wisdom says that the Phosphate Hill plant would not get built today.

The only way that this deal would have any chance of succeeding for Centrex, is if Incitec Pivot had offered them an off-take arrangement, so that the material could be processed through a plant designed to handle Georgina basin rock.

To put, not too fine a point on it, the Georgina basin projects (all of them) need IHP in order for them to be viable. Avenira holds the only license for IHP in Australia.

Baobab, is a far better deal.