Canadian company Allana Potash said on Tuesday that it had initiated a feasibility study for its potash project in Ethiopia.
The feasibility study will be done by Ercosplan and will investigate the potential to extract potash via open pit mining, solution mining and solar evaporation. The study would be completed by the second half of 2012.
Farhad Abasov the president and Chief Executive Officer of Allana Potash said that they expected that by the end of 2011, technical and economic parameters of open pit and solution mining methods will have been examined so that the management can determine what the optimal mining method at the initial production stage was.
Mr Abasov said that once the mining method was determined the rest of the feasibility study would focus on the details based on that method. He added that this was an important milestone for Allana since this timely start of the feasibility study would allow them to stay on track with their development plans. They looked forward to working with ERCOSPLAN as they moved forward to production and continue advancing their strategic talks with large fertilizer organizations.
ERCOSPLAN has been involved with the Ethiopian potash project for Allana Potash since 2008. It has also completed an updated National instrument 43-101 compliant resource estimate for the property in June 2011. Besides Allana Potash the clients of ERCOSPLAN include some of the biggest potash exploration companies and producers in the world.