Sulphate of potash (SoP) exploration and development company Reward Minerals will focus its activities and funding on the advancement of the Carnarvon potash project (CPP), in Western Australia, and its processing technology, the ASX-listed firm announced on Wednesday.

To facilitate the focus, Reward has elected to surrender its KP potash project tenements, except for one licence that contains the KP camp and infrastructure that will be used to attend to environmental remediation work.

“Since Reward developed its breakthrough potash processing technology and completed an engineering scoping study for the CPP in September 2023, it has become obvious that potash produced from solar seawater salt operation reject brines (bitterns) may achieve the lowest SoP production costs globally.

“Processing methods and logistics are critical components of potash production cost profiles hence we see major advantages using our technology in conjunction with established salt operations and transport infrastructure in coastal areas where better logistics exist,” said CEO Lorry Hughes.

He stated that, should Reward be successful in demonstrating the use of its technology at CPP, it could lead to the adoption of the technology by solar seawater salt operators in Western Australia and change the landscape for SoP production globally.

“Using seawater bitterns which are routinely discarded from long life solar salt operations is the most ESG-friendly method to recover SoP that exists in seawater. If existing operations adopt our technology to recover SoP and also transition to use solar and wind in their energy mix, we could see the cost of the highly sought after fertiliser reduce dramatically compared to current methods,” said Hughes.

The company submitted an Australian provisional patent application for the Reward process in August 2022 and completed the international application a year later. On 24 June 2024, Reward received a positive preliminary report on the patentability of the Reward process from the International Preliminary Examining Authority.