phosphate boom prompts more exploration

Phosphate boom prompts more exploration

Friday, 14/03/2008

The soaring price of rock phosphate has prompted an Australian company to search for another type of phosphate off the Namibian coast.

Phosphate has risen by 400 per cent in the past year and is now worth US$200 a tonne.

The Bonaparte Diamond company now plans to dredge marine phosphate from the sea floor.

Chief executive Mike Woodbourne is confident it will prove to be a good alternative to the rock phosphate used in fertilisers.

"It has the enrichment of the chemical formula PT05, it's the same as what you find in rock phosphate," he says.

"It's in the early stage of study for us and we'll be looking very carefully at the beneficiation process required, but it is a naturally-occurring organic phosphate."


http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/200803/s2189574.htm