TORONTO (miningweeekly.com) – Project developer Encanto Potash has lifted the resources at its flagship Muskowekwan project to support a potential life-of-mine (LoM) of 70 years, with the potential to add another 60 years to the LoM should the inferred resources be converted to reserves.

First Potash Ventures, a partnership between Encanto Potash and Muskowekwan Resources, was working toward developing the mine on the Muskowekan First Nation’s reserve, located 100 km north-east of Regina, Saskatchewan.

Encanto on Monday said its latest round of three-dimensional seismic exploration, including the previous drilling programme, had resulted in an overall resource comprising proven, probable, measured and indicated categories that would support a LoM of much longer than 70 years, based on full production levels of 2.8-million tonnes a year.

The project had total National Instrument 43-101-compliant proven and probable reserves of potassium chloride of 161.97-million tonnes and had a total of 197.37-million tonnes in the proven, probable, measured and indicated categories.

The company on Monday noted the project had turned into a large and long-life project. “The merit of putting this project into production keeps getting stronger with each milestone,” Encanto CEO and president Jim Walchuck said.

Encanto said the reassessed resource continued to add technical confidence to the reserve/resource and the additional three-dimensional data would allow the mine plan to be finalised in the feasibility study, which was currently under way.

Encanto also reported that the results of previous creep tests pointed to favourable creep rates that could allow larger caverns and smaller pillars, resulting in higher extraction ratios. As a result, the company was excited to be further evaluating cavern dimensions during the feasibility study process.

“We continue to believe that our flagship project is one of the most attractive undeveloped junior potash projects on the planet as we proceed with advanced and current offtake and production sales discussions,” business development director Gary Deathe said.

The project is expected to provide economic opportunities for the Muskowekwan First Nation, as well as the surrounding area, by providing training and employment opportunities during the construction and operation of the mine.

While the project would become the first on-reserve potash mine in Canada, the proposed Muskowekwan project was the first in Saskatchewan to have been accepted by the federal government under the First Nations Commercial and Industrial Development Act of 2006, which enabled the federal government to enact a provincial regulatory regime to govern commercial and industrial activities within a First Nation reserve.