More than 300 First Nations and Metis are working with contractors on
site and more than $300 million in contracts have been awarded to
companies owned or partnered with aboriginal enterprises.
NEAR BETHUNE – If building a potash mine was like a horse race, K+S’s Legacy project would be entering the home stretch. The $4.1-billion solution potash mine remains on time and on budget to begin production at the end of this year and full commercial production of two million tonnes per year by late 2017.
“We will produce the first tonnes of potash at the end of this year,” K+S Canada Potash president and CEO Ulrich Lamp told reporters Tuesday. “Then we will produce one million tonnes in 2017 and achieve our capacity of two million tonnes per year by the end of next year.’’
For Lamp, the project is the culmination of a long journey that began on a prairie field and a tent in 2012 when K+S first broke ground at the Legacy mine site, about 70 km northwest of Regina.
“For me, it’s unbelieveable. When I was here the first time (at the ground-breaking in 2012) standing on this ground, there was nothing, (but) an old barn,’’ said Lamp, a nearly 30-year veteran of K+S and president and CEO of KSPC since 2012.
“You have to experience it to understand the challenges.” To add to the challenge, the Legacy mine is K+S’s largest capital investment to date and the first “greenfield’’ potash mine to be built in Saskatchewan in more than 40 years.
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