Ann: Paradox Basin Potash Drilling Update - State, page-17

re: Ann: Paradox Basin Potash Drilling Update... PERTH (miningweekly.com) - ASX-listed Transit Holdings Thursday embarked on a name change to Potash Minerals in order to further reinforce the company’s focus on potash.

“About 80% of our market capitalisation is attributable to our potash activity and there is a huge potential for this project. This is where our focus will be going forward,” Transit Holdings CEO Ben Binninger told Mining Weekly Online.

He noted that the rationale behind the name change to Potash Minerals was simple, “we are potash”.

Transit’s focus is on its Paradox Basin potash project, in Utah, where the company was progressing drilling activities. In October, Transit started work on its second drill hole in the Paradox basin, which was aimed at confirming the results from previous oil well drilling, as well as to determine the extent of the potash mineralisation to the east.

Binninger noted that Transit had also executed a memorandum of understanding with the US Bureau of Land Management, which would provide a path forward for the company to explore for potash on federal lands, within the Paradox Basin project.

“It has taken us a few months to negotiate this understanding with the US Bureau of Land Management, wherein we have mutually agreed on a six-month schedule and also what they required for the approval process,” Binninger said.

He noted that Transit would be required to provide evidence that it would not be endangering the environment or any archeological areas of interest in the project site.

“I see little doubt that we will be drilling on federal land and likely within the next six months, it’s just a matter of where and when,” he said.

Transit would spend between $10-million and $15-million on drilling four holes across the federal land, said Binninger, adding that the company was also aiming to publish a Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant resource from its state drilling programme next year.

The drilling over the federal land was expected to be completed by mid-2013, and would be followed by a bankable feasibility study on the Paradox Basin project in 2014.

“In the short term, our job is really quite straightforward; it is to prove out the resource and get the permits for additional drilling, and then things will take care of themselves.”