Tach zusammen,
habe soeben im FY2014-Report der BHP Billiton Plc gestöbert und bin auf folgenden Absatz gestoßen (viel Vergnügen beim Lesen):
2.1.1 Petroleum and Potash Business continued
Potash
Our Potash strategy is to build a material industry position over
the long term.
We hold exploration permits and mining leases, issued by the
Government of Saskatchewan, covering more than 14,000 square
kilometres of mineral rights in the province of Saskatchewan
in Canada. We have progressively explored our permit areas over
the past seven years and continue to evaluate their economic
development potential. We are converting our exploration permits
to long-term lease as these permits mature in order to enable
further evaluation. To date, we have secured 4,400 square
kilometres under long-term mining leases.
We continue to progress our Jansen Potash Project, a greenfield
potash project, located approximately 140 kilometres east of
Saskatoon in south-central Saskatchewan. We believe Jansen
is the worlds best undeveloped potash resource and is likely to
be a low-cost source of supply once fully developed. Investment
in Jansen could underpin a potential fifth pillar of BHP Billiton,
given the opportunity to develop a multi-decade, multi-mine
basin in Saskatchewan.
On 20 August 2013, we announced an additional US$2.6 billion
investment for Jansen, bringing total approved spending to
US$3.8 billion. This investment is funding the excavation and lining
of the Projects production and service shafts, and the installation
of essential surface infrastructure and utilities.
The level of expenditure on the Jansen Potash Project in FY2014
was US$596 million, which was lower than the annual instalment
of US$800 million previously announced for FY2014. We suspended
excavation of the production and service shafts in the December
2013 quarter to enable a thorough review of activities completed
and to ensure all learnings were captured and adopted in future
works. Shaft excavation resumed in the March 2014 quarter and
progressed in a staggered manner to mitigate risk and optimise
their development. As at 30 June 2014, the pre-development phase
was 30 per cent complete.
During FY2014, we allowed our exclusivity for Terminal 5 at the
Port of Vancouver to lapse. We are currently assessing a range
of options to meet our port requirements.
With our investment premised on the attractive longer-term market
fundamentals for potash, we will continue to modulate the pace
of development as we seek to time our entrance to meet market
demand. The introduction of one or more minority partners,
consistent with our approach for certain of our other resource
operations, will be considered at the appropriate time.
On the basis of our current projections and assuming Board approval,
the Jansen Potash Project is likely to ramp-up to its nameplate
capacity of approximately 10 Mtpa of agricultural grade potassium
chloride (KCl) in the decade beyond 2020. The Measured Resource
estimate for Jansen is 5.3 billion tonnes at 25.6 per cent potassium
oxide (K2O) (25.6 per cent K2O is equivalent to 40.5 per cent KCl
using the mineralogical conversion factor of 1.583) with an
anticipated life of more than 50 years. The Government of
Saskatchewan has issued a Potash Lease Special Agreement (KLSA)
for our Jansen Project, which provides long-term security of tenure
to allow the ongoing development and subsequent operation of
Jansen for the life of the operation.
We are continuing to evaluate other areas for which we have
exploration permits in the Saskatchewan potash basin, including
Young, Boulder and Melville, through analysis of the extensive
data collected from successive exploration programs.
In 2013, the management of the closed mine sites associated
with Base Metals North America was transitioned from the
Copper to the Potash Business. All locations are in care and
maintenance or in various stages of closure.
Bin bereits dabei umzuschichten ;)
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