Thank you Barry, page-2

Thanks Stick89, talking to mgmt. they will openly confirm the 100ktpa targeted operation to service the local demand, if all goes to plan. Be good to see a scoping study but first will be inferred resource update. The recent drilling is definitely enough to estimate this, and the fact the depth and grade continues off the lake bodes very well! Here’s the full article for anyone interested. GLTA.

It’s tomato planting season and the best bit of advice you’ll ever get is to use a good sprinkling of sulphate of potash (SOP).
The combination of potassium and sulphur is guaranteed to deliver a healthier bush, an improved yield and, if you can believe it, tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes.
But any SOP you do use will have travelled a long way given Australia hasn’t produced its own since the 1950s, even though it has some of the most nutrient deficient soils in the world.
Farm gate prices for the stuff are about $1200 a tonne, making it a premium product compared with muriate of potash (MOP), the chloride carrying form of potassium used on cereal crops and the bulk end of the market, the sector BHP Billiton hopes to eventually break into with its $US10 billion Jansen project in Canada.
Global demand for SOP runs at more than 6 million tonnes, accounting for about 10 per cent of total potash demand.
It sells for at least twice the price of MOP and, naturally enough, has tight-fisted farmers using its sparingly.
Lower the price in this and other markets and it is London to a brick that there would be more SOP used in the growing of things where it works best — high-value fruits (15 per cent of usage), vegetables (25 per cent) and nuts/turf (60 per cent).
But supply is restricted to the extent that big brine salt deposits with operating costs of about $US200 a tonne of SOP are few and far between, with about half of production having to come from the high-cost Mannheim process (upwards of $US450 a tonne) that uses sulphuric acid to convert MOP to SOP.
Domestic production of SOP is on the agenda, with Reward Minerals (RWD) advancing work on getting its Lake Disappointment SOP project in Western Australia’s Little Sandy Desert to the starting stalls. It is now an $83 million company.
Meanwhile, Melbourne-based EMR Capital is backing the SOP plans of Canadian-listed Crystal Peak Minerals at its Sevier Playa project in Utah.
But today’s interest is in former gold explorer and SOP aspirant Goldphyre Resources (GPH). In the clapped out market for anything to do with resources, its shares have swum against the tide, doubling to 7.8c since June 30. It gives Goldphyre a market capitalisation of $8m.
The interest in the stock reflects the success of a drilling program that tested the SOP potential of its Lake Wells project, 400km northwest of Kalgoorlie.
Results from a drilling program reported last month returned “very strong” SOP concentrations in brine beneath the lake proper and in the surrounds.
It was a good start and made all the more interesting because despite Lake Wells’ seemingly remote location, it has infrastructure access.
A resource estimate is the next signpost for the project but the pundits are already thinking about the potential for a 100,000 tonne-a-year SOP project.
Again, a lot more work to do. Goldphyre is positioning itself as a local hero in pursuing Lake Wells’ SOP potential, which is not a bad idea in an environment where new resource projects of any description struggle to win political and bureaucratic support.
“Our goal is to target a low- capital operation that initially supplies farmers and other potash users in Australia with a product that they currently import 100 per cent of from costly overseas suppliers,’’ the company states.
Can’t argue with that