MINEMAKERS is betting that a breakthrough in phosphate processing will unlock a Northern Territory giant, penetrate an unstoppably expanding Asian market and secure supply of the most precious commodity of all.
The company has teamed up with US-based fertiliser group Agrifos to pursue new means of upgrading phosphate rock to superphosphoric acid at its massive Wonarah project in the NT’s Georgina Basin.
Efficiencies derived from the process and the liquid fertilisers made possible from the upgraded product are expected to finally realise the site’s potential and address the most fundamental supply-demand dynamic in a world racing toward a population of 8 billion people by 2025.
“We see ourselves as a bridge between mining and the agri-sector which we think is part of the future of Australian resources,” Minemakers managing director Cliff Lawrenson said at a special presentation in Perth gathering both Minemakers and Agrifos leadership.
“We are firm believers that Australia has the DNA and the capability to be a significant part of Asia’s food bowl going forward.
“Fertiliser is a growth sector and it’s as simple as people having to eat.
“They don’t necessarily have to make railway lines and bridges and all that sort of thing – but they have to eat. So going back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we’re in the area of one of the primary needs.”
Commodities are sometimes labelled “strategic”, “critical” or even “fads” within the mining industry, but Minemakers and Agrifos describe an end-market so unwaveringly essential, it seems to transcend the lesser economic forces that play havoc with most mineral markets.
“There’s no substitute for phosphates or any fertiliser, and the way that agriculture is being practiced everywhere in the world today is high intensity, growing a lot of crops in a small area,” Agrifos vice-chairman Timothy Cotton said.
“If you stop fertilising today, half the world’s population would starve in less than a year.
“This is a very fundamental commodity for humanity. We tend to focus on grain, but without the fertiliser, you don’t have the grain.”
At the heart of the Wonarah strategy is the “improved hard process” (IHP) for producing superphosphoric acid at lower cost and with better environmental credentials.
Wonarah had been contemplated as a direct shipping ore operation when phosphate rock prices were at their peak before the global financial crisis. But logistical difficulties at the remote site and the dwindling global market for unprocessed phosphate inspired a new plan.
Global phosphate players have long known that the 800 million tonne-plus giant would be developed eventually.
They just needed a new angle, a hint that the project’s commercial potential could be realised now rather than later.
“Frankly, what went on in the market with the phosphate prices increasing since 2007-8 has brought a lot of interest back to the Georgina resource,” Agrifos chairman Farouk Chaouni said.
“And looking at it from the outside, the moment we saw the IHP, that triggered our interest and we started looking into the process.
“It became very obvious to us that the combination of the resource with this new process and all the benefits attached to it is really a direction in which the industry is going to go.
“For the resource that Minemakers has to be unleashed, it has to be processed, and IHP has tremendous advantages over the traditional wet process.”
IHP grinds low-grade rock phosphate with petroleum coke and silica sand into pellets which are then heated to produce superphosphoric acid.
A pilot plant in Florida is currently developing the process which Minemakers believes will be validated and demonstrated imminently.
It costs the company about $US80 ($A89) per tonne to move rock phosphate trading at $140-150/t from Wonarah to Darwin. But IHP is expected to allow the production of a product worth $1000-1500/t, drastically improving project economics and satisfying a growing need for precision-use liquid fertilisers.
Potential advantages of IHP have been touted to include modular production models with less reliance on economies of scale and the ability to process much lower quality ores.
The superphosphoric acid generated by the process in turn allows for the production of liquid fertilisers, projected to overtake traditional granular fertilisers as higher populations and environmental concerns press farmers to be more efficient.
Ultimately, the plan is tied to Asian food security and the potential for Australia to play a key role in addressing this titanic challenge through mining.
With limited fertiliser resources, growing India is a big importer of phosphate and is believed to be the bellwether food security market for phosphates in the near term.
The country has done an incredible job becoming a net food exporter but they will need fertiliser to continue the job. Indonesia and Malaysia, meanwhile, import the totality of their phosphate.
“We don’t expect to see very high pricing for the next few years but there’s a supply and demand cycle that persists here,” Cotton said.
“There’s a steady growth in population and consumption that does require new capacity to come on, and that’s where the idea here is not to be a player for a flashy period of high prices for one or two years.
“It’s to have an operation that can be profitable through good markets and down markets.”
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