Representatives from BHP Billiton came out to Humboldt on November 24 to give people in the community an update on the Jansen Potash Mine project.
"I've worked in a lot of places and worked on projects and there's never been one as exciting and fast-paced as this one," said Alun Richards of BHP at the Humboldt session.
Similiar meetings will be held in five other cnetres in the area between November 22 and December 6.
Before talking about the Jansen project, Richards shared a little bit about BHP with those gathered.
"BHP is a values-driven company and they have to be with all the projects in different countries and various (productions)," said Richards.
The company has 100 assets in 25 different countries in 10 different operations groups. In Saskatchewan, they are focused on potash which in part of their Diamond and Speciality products group.
"We plan to spend $80-billion in the next five years on five different projects (in the world)," said Richards.
BHP has not been involved in the potash business for a long period of time.
"About six years ago, we started considering potash as a future commodity," said Richards.
At this time, they acquired land in the Saskatchewan potash basin, which stretches mainly across the central part of the province, and bought out both Engle and Athabasca Potash companies.
"We now have 14,500 square kilometres of land, so that's really a lot of land," he noted.
They have been concentrating their efforts on five locations, the three major ones being Jansen, Young and Melville.
"The three projects that are the most advanced are Jansen, Young and Melville," said Richards. "We could potentially develop up to five mines, it just depends on the size of the mine and how the (production) is going and this would be over a long period of time."
He explained there is a high demand for potash in the world, which Jansen would be a part of supplying.
"Saskatchewan produces over 40 per cent of the world's potash and (it) has the best potash reserves in the world," said Richards. "We could see that percentage going up. The demand for potash is increasing steadily over the last decades."
They have been working hard at the Jansen mine site, which is the most advanced of all their projects.
"The Jansen project has gone through a number of stages and it will go through a big decision sometime next year," said Richards, adding the decision will probably come in the last half of 2012.
"Almost $2-billion has been invested so far in Saskatchewan - almost $1.2-billion of that has been on the Jansen project," he added.
Since they have invested so much money into the project already, he believes the mine will get an official go ahead next year from BHP.
Currently the mine is in the infrastructure stage, which consists of planning for infrastructure and starting freezing the ground to install the mine shafts.
"We will begin other work on the project soon," he said. "We are stripping topsoil off a full square section of land."
The topsoil will be used for landscaping once the mine is built and will later be used to fill in the mine when it is decommissioned.
"Right now, as we are planning the construction of the mine, we are also planning the decommissioning," said Richards. "It may not happen for another 70 years or so, but it is one of the things we are doing."
They are also bringing in material for surface construction from Watrous and working on getting more power lines, in negotiations with CP Rail for a rail line and with SaskPower for a water pipeline to the site.
"The pipeline will be able to run in 70-million cubic metres a year. We don't see ourselves using that, but that's what that pipeline will carry," said Richards.
The pipeline will also supply water to nearby towns.
Currently there are over 100 people working on the site and Richards could see that number expand to 2,500 people while the mine is under construction.
"Construction at this time could begin next summer," said Richards.
Since there will be so many people working there, the company is planning to build a "five-star camp," said Richards.
The camp will have many facilities, much like a hotel, such as a gym, an entertainment area and a restaurant-style cafeteria.
"We want to have a place where you won't mind staying a week or two," said Richards. "Hopefully we can build something that really stands out."
There are many reasons they are building the camp, but the main ones are transportation issues,and the over-crowding and lack of temporary housing in surrounding commities.
There are three phases to building the mine. The first stage puts in utilities, a railroad, storage and processing facilities and a service shaft. The second stage adds more storage and processing to bring the amount of potash processed to 40 million tonnes. The third and final stage would double everything on the site.
"We aren't going to build it to the full size instantly," said Richards. "We could have 10 years of construction at that site."
The mine would be open while the last two stages of construction would happen and they hope to be producing potash by the rate of two-million tonnes by 2015.
Before they take the final steps in taking a mine from the exploration stages to a reality, BHP will first take a few things into consideration.
"One of the issues is community readiness for growth," said Richards. "If the community is not ready for the kind of growth that might come... it may create a lot of problems."
He explained that through their study, they have discovered the Jansen area is prepared for growth and looking forward to it.
"We are glad to find that out," he said.
Other issues are housing and traffic.
"We do not want them all driving out to the mine," said Richards of the workers. "We are going to set up some system, we don't know yet what it might be but (we are thinking of) maybe a park and ride bus system."
They also plan on encouraging their workers to live in the area and are considering implementing incentives to buy houses in the surrounding communities.
During the presentation, Richards explained that safety was important to their company, which was evident last week when 19 workers at their Jansen site reported flu-like symptoms and the site was quarantined for a week.
The Noro Virus was confirmed in one sample collected, said Christine Parsons of BHP.
"All required steps of treatment, isolation and site sterilization were undertaken to ensure the well being of BHP Billiton's employees and contractors and the virus was brought under control with no new cases over the weekend." said Parsons. "As of (November 28) travel to and from the site and camp has returned to normal but we continue to monitor the situation."
