Potash Ridge (PRK.T) finished pulling the trigger on its Blawn Mountain Project option when the company announced today that its 100%-owned subsidiary, Utah Alunite LLC, made the final installment of US$668,936 to the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) converting its Exploration and Option Agreement for the Blawn Mountain Property into a Mining Lease.
Blawn Mountain Project, approximately 31 miles southwest of the small town of Milford, Utah, makes up 18.5 sections of state-owned land.
On top of regulatory advantages, such as simpler permitting processes, the company’s pre-feasibility study showed the project had proved and probable mineral reserves of 153 million tons – enough to support a 46-year life.
Extracting these reserves will be relatively easy as the plan calls for surface mining operations and conventional processing methods – far more economical and less complex than underground mining methods.
So why is this good news for investors?
According to the World Bank, the planet is going to have to produce 50% more food to adequately feed the 9.0 billion people living on this little blue ball by 2050. There is also a concern that climate change may reduce harvests by 25% in the meantime. Then there’s that whole shrinking availability of arable land thing.
Needless to say, the demand for potassium sulphate is expected to rise dramatically.
Potash Ridge intends to help meet that demand as the lowest cost producer in North America with an average operating margin of $135 million for the first ten years of mining and $172 million per annum thereafter.
This is why today’s announcement is so important to Potash Ridge as company President & CEO, Guy Bentinck attested, “Securing unencumbered rights to developing Blawn Mountain is a major milestone in advancing this world-class project. Blawn Mountain will be a long-life, low-cost producer of potassium sulfate strategically located in North America’s underserved market. Development of Blawn Mountain continues, with the major activities being advancing detailed engineering, securing offtake, and project financing.”
Potash Ridge is moving hard on this one, having just gone through a $750,000 private placement financing at the end of June for the advancement of Blawn.
It isn’t hard to see why.
–Gaalen Engen
http://twitter.com/gaalenengen
FULL DISCLOSURE: Potash Ridge is an EQUITY.GURU client.
So why does PRK keep going down then?
The future is bright still
It’s sure dropped in price
Chad, your observation is correct. Potash Ridge stock price has been cruelly punished. One of the confounding things about the TSX.V, is the role of “investor sentiment”. Potash is not being talked about at dinner parties. PRK is not a client. But for the record, we believe this is a well run company that has met its stated objectives.