Cleveland Potash
Saltmine
“ With any emerging , new product you have to prove that this new product is just as effective , safe and is generally okay compared to more established brands ”
– Phil Baines , Managing Director & General Manager to a previously unheard amount of polyhalite deposit , and is something which makes the organisation unique . It is the only one in the entire world mining the rare material used as a speciality fertilizers .
Part of the five-year plan is to ramp up the annual polyhalite production tonnage to 600,000 by 2017 .
Borehole information on the mine dates as far back as the 1930 ’ s . Planning permission was granted in a joint venture between Chartered Consolidated and ici Chemicals which started shaft sinking in 1969 .
The first potash were hoisted in 1973 , fullproduction came about in 1975 but it was not until recently that polyhalite started to be extracted commercially .
Baines said : “ We put two drifts down from the current salt horizon within the mine , in the central area , about three years ago now .
“ There ’ s millions of tonnes of it and at this stage , its looks relatively stable and strong , and we have proved you can machine cut it and support the infrastructure very well .
“ The compressive strength can be up to 150mpa compared 30mpa for the potash so it is significantly stronger but we have been working on it for two years now , and the mine has stood as firm as an office .
“ We also have a third mineral called carnallite so we have multiple options that take different processes which gives us much more flexibility
56 September 2014