Commences fertilizer Sales in Canada
Perth, Oct 9, 2014 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Phosphate developer Fertoz Limited (
ASX:FTZ)("Fertoz" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has commenced phosphate rock sales from its Wapiti Project in British Columbia, Canada.
A farmer near Stettler, a town in east-central Alberta, Canada, has purchased 28 tonnes of ground 20% P2O5 rock for use in conventional agriculture trials. The delivered price was C$200/t. The Company is currently trialling potential pricing points for the Wapiti phosphate rock for use in organic and conventional farms across western Canada.
The rock was ground to approximately 100 mesh (0.15 mm) by Eggers Soil Solutions in the Grand Prairie agricultural region of Alberta, approximately 240km east of Tumbler Ridge.
Managing Director Les Szonyi said "We are excited to announce the first fertilizer sales for Fertoz which is a significant achievement in our first year as a listed company. The sale of phosphate rock to both conventional and organic farmers has reaffirmed the huge market opportunity of rock phosphate as a direct application product especially in view of the fact that, apart from Fertoz, no-one else will have an operating phosphate mine in Canada in the near future."
"We have appointed Eggers Soil Solutions ("Eggers") as the processor of Wapiti phosphate rock, enabling us to become a producer and seller of a direct application phosphate fertilizer without the need for capital investment in a processing plant. Eggers are ideally located in Alberta to process the Wapiti bulk sample for sale to farmers in western Canada."
"Fertoz has begun discussions with potential distributors located in both western and eastern Canada as well as north western USA. All distributors have established relationships with conventional farms and in some cases organic farms.
The first sale demonstrated to the distributor network our capability to supply direct application phosphate that is "market ready". Fertoz aims to become a reliable long term supplier of high quality phosphate to one of the largest agricultural markets in the world, North America."
"We have approval to extract up to 27,500 tonnes of bulk sample from our Wapiti and Fernie projects and are still on track to submit a small mine application for up to 75,000 tonnes per annum of rock phosphate at Wapiti in 2014, with the intention of being able to provide a continuous supply of high grade phosphate rock for both organic and conventional farmers."
The market opportunity in conventional agriculture has been caused by conventional phosphate fertilizers being ineffective when used in the acidic soils of Western Canada. Alberta alone has 1 million acres of farmed strongly acidic soils and 4.5 million acres of moderately acid soils (Ref: Liming Acid Soils, Alberta Govt Department of Agriculture and Rural Development). Fertoz is in discussions with a number of agronomists who are keen to show farmers that an effective soil solution is a high calcium carbonate product combined with rock phosphate and other additives. The Company has also identified numerous distribution centres across Canada and north-western USA supplying soil additives and has begun negotiations with some of these centres to stock Wapiti phosphate rock.
The Company's three projects - Wapiti, Fernie and Dry Ridge - are all proximate to major farming regions in Canada and the USA.
About Wapiti
The Wapiti Project (which includes the Wapiti East and Wapiti West tenements) totals an area of 18,070 ha and is located near Tumbler Ridge, in British Columbia, Canada. The project is easily accessible by sealed roads and forest service roads and has rail access within 80 km. The Company is focused on the Wapiti East tenements and previous work indicates a consistent and continuous at-surface phosphate-bearing horizon which has a potential strike length of up to 39km. Results of phosphate testing indicates up to 10% availability which makes the product at Wapiti East particularly attractive to the North American organic sector, the largest organic market in the world.
About Fertoz Ltd
Fertoz (ASX:FTZ) is an Australian-based phosphate exploration and development company with a range of projects in British Columbia, Canada as well as Queensland and the Northern Territory. The Company is focused on becoming a fertiliser producer as quickly as possible, initially focusing on the Canadian/USA markets.
Fertoz plans to develop its exploration assets in Canada in order to identify any potential Direct Shipping Ore (DSO) projects. It intends to seek joint venture partners to assist in funding the exploration projects in Australia.
Phosphate is a commodity necessary for feeding the world, and Fertoz is ready to capitalise on this growing demand.
| ||
|
