The Chinese have the money ,-The Chinese have the expertise ,- Lakes has the Gas ,- But we have a Coward for Premier only concerned about his Political future .
Read the item below about Urea ,- I undestand LKO have a Billion dollar contract for a Urea Plant ready to go .
Northern Territory fertiliser could fuel dining boom
ABC Rural By Marty McCarthy 24 Updated Thu 19 Jun 2014, 8:25am AEST Photo: The Northern Territory is sitting on a billion-dollar fertiliser industry (Supplied: Rum Jungle Resources) Map: Darwin 0800 The Northern Territory is sitting on a multi-billion dollar fertiliser industry that could help grow Australia's agriculture sector. Darwin-based miner, Rum Jungle Resources, has been scouring the Northern Territory for minerals needed to make fertiliser. Executive director, Chris Tziolis, says the Territory is an up-tapped region that's rich in phosphate and potash. "The Northern Territory has most of the ingredients to build a long term and sustainable fertiliser industry that is directly aligned with the potential for agricultural growth, not only for northern Australia but [across] Australia," he said. "For the farmer in either northern Australia or southern Australia, hopefully it will be a reliable source of phosphate fertilisers and potash - sulphate potash is the product we'd produce." Mr Tziolis says the development of a major Australian-based fertiliser industry would reduce the nation's reliance on 'unstable' supply chains in the Middle East. "The Middle East and Northern Africa where these things are produced have geopolitical issues. So the big buyers of these products, they look for diversification of supply and stability in the ability to secure their supply," he said. "[We] import phosphate fertilisers from Morocco or Saudi Arabia or China or Mexico or Florida, [but] surely we can produce them in Australia at a lower rate when we've got the elements."
Audio: NT sitting on a fertiliser goldmine(ABC Rural) The 'Pilbara of Phosphate' Rum Jungle Resources says the Northern Territory is the 'Pilbara of Phosphate' in Australia. Australia currently imports most of the minerals needed to make fertilisers, but Mr Tziolis says the ingredients are already here. "The ingredients you need is economic resources of phosphate and potash," he said. "You need gas to create ammonia, which then can be turned into ammonia fertilisers such as urea." He says the Northern Territory has these ingredients, although they're yet to be extracted. "There's a couple of large phosphate resources in the Georgina Basin - it's world scale - a billion tonnes of phosphate ore which is not insignificant." "In places like Saudi Arabia and Morocco there are isolated operations that are about that size and collectively they have a lot. "But the Georgina Basin, particularly the Northern Territory side, is very underexplored. "There are potentially many other large phosphate resources that may be discovered in the course of time." The challenge The Northern Territory might have most of the ingredients needed to build a fertiliser industry, but there are some missing links. "You need sulphur, which is the one thing we don't have," Mr Tziolis says. "You need efficient and economic transport systems and you need access to skilled and appropriate labour." Rum Jungle Resources is a junior ASX listed company, and admits this vision is too big to pull off itself. "Juniors will not develop these projects by themselves," Mr Tziolis says. "The opportunity will only be realised if we can attract the global players to Australia and to the Territory to develop these resources. "So we need to make the projects attractive enough that the big global fertiliser producers see this as the next cab off the rank. "That's our challenge."
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