Salt Lake Potash (AIM:SO4 ) said its Lake Way Project in Australia is 60% complete and is on schedule to deliver its first Sulphate of Potash (“SOP”) production in the March quarter of 2021.
The dual-listed company told investors that the project is now 60% complete on an earned value basis with major vendor procurement packages over 90% committed with fixed costs.
The group recently completed its financing process for the Lake Way project after executing an A$203m debt financing package and A$98.5m fully underwritten equity raising.
At the process plant , concrete foundations poured by engineering group Flanco are more than 80% complete, installation of structural steel supplied by construction firm Metro Steel has commenced and first carbon steel tanks have been installed by welding firm Proweld.
All permanent buildings are now on site and installed including the permanent village, construction village, warehouse, workshop, administration, reagents, laboratory, ablutions, crib rooms and 4G communications has been installed across site, the company outlined.
Shares in Salt Lake Potash have traded solidly over the past two weeks and were trading 0.92% higher at 27.75p this morning following the announcement.
Long lead procurement items are arriving on site including the Veolia crystallisers with associated components and tanks, and transformers from Wilson while vendor packages are currently in transit to site include lump breaker, attritioners, wet screens and centrifuges.
"On site activity will be accelerating over the coming weeks as we move into the peak construction phase of the process plant and non-process infrastructure,” said CEO, Tony Swiericzuk.
He added, “The SO4 owners team and GRES continue to do an outstanding job driving all work streams on-schedule with first SOP production due in Q1'21."
Meanwhile, the development of on-lake infrastructure continues to progress while work has commenced on the fourth of six pond trains and 62km of trenches have now been completed.
The Paleochannel drilling programme continues with the sixth bore hole now underway and all bores have intercepted basal sands in line with the model prediction, the group added.
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