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EDMONTON – Brian (Griz) Testo has been a dreamer and an explorer all his life. He recalls panning for gold in the McLeod River near Hinton at age eight, and discovering a fossil pit at 14.
Now nearing 62, with a colourful background prospecting for diamonds and other minerals, the former pipeline welder is pursuing a commodity nearly unheard of in Alberta: potash.
“It’s the chase, and the discovery,” Testo said in an interview. “My dream is that we hit potash and we get a new industry for Alberta, we make our shareholders a ton of money, we create jobs, create wealth for people, and feed the world.”
Testo is president and CEO of Grizzly Discoveries Inc., which takes its name from his nickname. The Edmonton-based junior mining company announced this week it is in talks with a potential partner about a possible $15-million investment in Grizzly’s Alberta potash project.
Grizzly’s unnamed partner, which Testo will only say is based outside Canada, is now reviewing the company’s data and information. If a deal results, Grizzly would be in a position this year to drill four test wells near Vermilion and Lloydminster.
“If they’re interested, they’ll kick us $5 million, we’ll drill four wells, and if we hit potash in any one of those wells, they’ll kick in the other 10 (million) and then we’re off to the races,” Testo says. “That’s my thoughts on the deal.”
Next door, Saskatchewan is a world leader in the production of potash minerals mined from vast underground deposits left by the evaporation of an ancient inland sea. Saskatchewan potash products are sold into markets worldwide for use as fertilizer.
Despite some exploration work in the 1960s, a potash industry has never developed in Alberta.
Testo wants to change that. Grizzly holds metallic and industrial mineral permits covering 364,000 hectares in two areas along the Saskatchewan border, one near Medicine Hat, the other near Lloydminster.
In 2011, core samples from a test well Grizzly drilled near Medicine Hat revealed a 22-metre-thick layer of low-grade potash minerals about 1.6 kilometres below ground, and also some smaller deposits of higher-grade potash.
Grizzly hasn’t yet drilled near Lloydminster, but Testo is buoyed by a report he discovered online six years ago: in 1965, petroleum geologist Albert Golden suggested the potash mineral sylvite exists “in substantial quantities” in an area near Vermilion, 195 kilometres east of Edmonton.
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