With Sirius Exploration think you need to do a little bit more research into the sector, the locations of the tenements and the significance of the disparate parts of this business before you can start to understand what is developing here. Let me take the tenements in America for a start. Dakota Salts is based in North Dakota. A recent government report highlighted the potash and halite deposits to be found in the state.
https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/Mineral/nd_saltnew.asp
The significant paragraphs are:-
“Potash may be mined from North Dakota in beds of sylvite (potassium chloride) or sylvinite (mixtures of potassium chloride and sodium chloride). Approximately 50 billion tons of potash occur in the Prairie Formation (Devonian) in North Dakota. These evaporites were deposited in a trough that extends from the Northwest Territories in Canada to northeastern Montana and northwestern North Dakota. Potash beds occupy an area of 11,000 square miles that extends from the Montana border to central Bottineau County and from the Canadian border to central Dunn County. This salt interval reaches its maximum thickness of over 500 feet in Burke County. The potash portion of the salt section has a gross thickness of 83 feet.”
“The main reason that North Dakota's potash deposits have not been utilized is because these same beds are found at a much shallower depths which enable the use of both conventional mining as well as solution mining in southern Saskatchewan. There are currently ten potash mines in Saskatchewan. Kalium operates a large potash plant that processes brines from a series of solution wells near Belle Plain, Saskatchewan. Potash is primarily used in the manufacture of fertilizer although testing is currently being done to determine the feasibility of a potash based water softening salt.”
The first paragraph is an undoubted plus. Massive amounts of potash in insanely thick beds centred on Burke County in North Dakota.
The second paragraph explains why these resources haven’t been commercially viable to exploit to date. The potash deposits in neighbouring Saskatchewan are far more accessible and therefore cheaper to mine. So what has changed? Why was North Dakota not commercially viable to mine for potash 20, 15, 10, 5 years ago but viable now?
The reasons are all down to gas/oil storage, CAES, CCS. You may want to take a minute out to consider where the three major entry points into the USA are for…
