29th Mar 2018 14:22
The Woodsmith mine is a deep potash and polyhalite mine near to Whitby in
Sirius has agreed the design-and-build contract with Strabag AG for the construction of the mineral transport system at Woodsmith, which will cover the area between Wilton and Lockwood Beck.
The company gave no exact figures for the contract, but said it will pay Strabag, an Austrian engineering and tunnelling contractor, a lump sum with fixed rates for tunnelling advance.
The two other drives of the system will cover the area between Lockwood Beck and the mine and the other way around. Sirius hopes to award this work at the same time as completing stage-two financing.
That process is going well, it said, with the last three months spent doing due diligence as well as working with lenders. It expects talks to re-start with lenders in the coming weeks and into the second quarter, with commitments hoped to be in place during the second half of 2018.
In terms of site infrastructure at Woodsmith, the connection of the power supply for construction is progressing "smoothly", Sirius said, and ducting work is complete with cable pulling underway. Site preparation is now complete at both Woodsmith and Lockwood Beck, which will be a mineral transfer point for the mine.
Sirius is making progress on commercial discussions, and hopes to deliver further supply agreements in 2018. These talks are with "significant" players in key regional markets, it said.
Finally, work on front end engineering design work for "all other scopes" of the project is going well.
Sirius Minerals shares were up 2.8% at
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