Season's Greetings Message from Farhad
posted on
Dec 22, 2014 02:21PM
Focusing on the Dallol Potash Project in Ethiopia
As we move into the most important year for Allana IMO....
Shareholders and Friends,
On behalf of all of us at Allana Potash at home and abroad, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your family the very best for this holiday season, a Merry Christmas and health and good fortune in the New Year.
This year has been a difficult one in many respects as commodity markets around the globe have suffered significant headwinds. However, despite difficult times, it is important to appreciate the blessings we all can be grateful for: family, friends, health, and goodwill.
The Allana Potash family is particularly thankful for the continuous and loyal support from all our shareholders and stakeholders, and for all the dedication and tireless hard work of our focussed employees throughout the world. They have helped achieve many important milestones this past year and have brought us closer to realizing our ultimate goal of creating a world-class potash producing project in Ethiopia.
Among our many accomplishments, I am particularly proud of the following milestones achieved in 2014:
*The sector game-changing strategic alliance between ICL and Allana Potash, which provided us with a valuable take-or-pay off-take agreement, a technical cooperation partnership and a financial contribution to complete all necessary pre-construction work and bank due diligence for our Danakhil potash solution mining project.
* The commencement of the front-end engineering design (FEED) work and the engagement of AMEC Americas Ltd. to carry out this important step in the pre-construction stage of our project.
*The granting of an exclusive water rights and extraction permit for our solution mine which has potential for substantial expansion above the 1 million tonnes/year capacity level.
*The initiation of a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) Study (to be carried out by ERCOSPLAN) to determine the potential of mining the significant kainitite deposits in the Danakhil to produce sulfate of potash(SOP), which would augment our current muriate of potash(MOP) project. We believe this has the potential to add substantial value to our operations for all shareholders/stakeholders.
*The advancement of optimization studies on commercial cavern production and aquifer stress tests (AST), as well as significant progress on port and road infrastructure construction specifically for our project.
The current difficult operating environment for the mining sector in general, and potash in particular, shows little sign of abating in 2015, however, your management team and every employee at Allana Potash remains committed to our project and focused on completing financing and starting construction next year. It is a testament to the focus and dedication of our Board of Directors and senior management team (with the support of the Ethiopian government and its people), that we continue to make excellent progress towards these milestones.
I have every confidence in our ability to achieve further significant milestones in 2015, with the ultimate goal of making "Potash for Africa First" a reality.
With Best Holiday Wishes,
Farhad Abasov
President & CEO
Allana Potash Corp.