Minemakers Ltd has delayed the commissioning of its Wonarah phosphate project in Australia by four years to 2015, as it is still looking for a joint venture partner to build a fertiliser plant, the Perth-based company told IM.
Minemakers, which is developing the project in the Northern Territories in order to produce phosphate rock and phosphate-based fertiliser, had initially targeted 2011 to begin production with a capacity of 500,000 tonnes which would have then been expanded to 3m tpa in 2012.
“For the last 12 to 18 months we have been focused on the identification of the optimal route for development of the massive Wonarah deposit,” executive chairman Andrew Drummond explained to IM, underlining that “it has become evident that it will include construction of full downstream processing facilities to enable high-grade fertilisers to be produced in large quantity”.
As a result,...