Even Purple Moon’s dwelling province, Newfoundland and Labrador, imports from neighbouring Quebec the 300,000 tonnes of street salt it makes use of yearly.
“By way of the safety of provide, understand that no new underground salt mines have been constructed within the final 20 years in Canada and the US, due partially to the very fact there are only a few preferrred areas. A few of the present mines are working into growing old points, and delivery prices from abroad have jumped significantly simply in current months,” Purple Moon’s president, Rowland Howe, instructed MINING.COM.
North America’s whole annual salt market is roughly 25 million tonnes
In response to Howe, these native provide shortages mixed with the truth that environment friendly salt mines are recognized to be dynamic long-term turbines of free money circulation, is what drew Purple Moon to the Nice Atlantic south deposit.
Situated close to the Turf Level Port in western Newfoundland, the deposit was initially found by means of oil and fuel exploration. It’s thought-about certainly one of North America’s largest shallow salt deposits and it’s instantly adjoining to the Flat Bay gypsum deposit, whose mines produced a reported 15 million tonnes from the Nineteen Fifties till manufacturing ceased in 1990.
Nice Atlantic hosts roughly 1.4 billion tonnes grading 95.6% NaCl, whereas useful resource modelling based mostly on earlier drilling signifies continuity of the salt useful resource with common thickness of 200 metres to 250 metres.
“The importance of this salt deposit – the tonnage (>1 billion tonnes), the relative shallowness of it, the excessive grades (>95%), and its strategic location subsequent to vital infrastructure together with a deep water port, was rapidly understood,” Howe mentioned. “Purple Moon is the one firm with a serious undeveloped salt deposit.”
Environmentally pleasant
In response to Howe, the purpose is to construct an environmentally pleasant, low-cost operation and the primary new salt “manufacturing facility” in Atlantic Canada in 60 years. The plan is to make use of easy bodily processing – mine, crush, display, and cargo.
The undertaking has a bankable feasibility examine that features near-term extra drilling which is able to decide whether or not the simplest mining technique can be ramp/decline or shaft. A whole feasibility examine is presently being carried out by SLR Consulting (Canada).
“Salt has many makes use of in as we speak’s society in addition to being certainly one of life’s important minerals,” the manager mentioned. “Essentially the most promising fast marketplace for salt produced from the Nice Atlantic deposit is for street de-icing, however longer-term secondary makes use of – the chemical trade, for instance, requires high-grade salt – would probably emerge.”
Howe, who joined Purple Moon earlier this 12 months after a decade working Compass Minerals’ Goderich salt mine in southern Ontario, mentioned the event of Nice Atlantic not solely affords the potential of supplying the native market, it will additionally assist scale back abroad imports and, thus, support the trouble to chop international carbon emissions.
