Harvest Minerals makes progress at Arapua project

Fertiliser development company Harvest Minerals updated the market on Monday, highlighting progress at its Arapua multi-nutrient direct application natural fertiliser project, located in the heart of the Brazilian agriculture belt in Minas Gerais.

The AIM-traded firm said that, as it had previously announced, its focus had been on completing the first-round agronomic test work so that an application for certification of KPfértil as a remineraliser could be submitted to the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply.

It described KPfértil as an organic, multi-nutrient slow release fertiliser and remineraliser produced from a weathered potassium and phosphate-rich lava, which reportedly offered “many” economic and agronomic benefits.

As part of the certification process, the company said it had been undertaking multiple agronomy trials which were being conducted by three organisations - the Federal University of Varginha, the Institute of Agricultural Research of Cerrado, and the Federal University of Uberlandia.

The results from the latest round of tests were due “imminently”, which would allow the application to MAPA to be submitted by late July.

Subject to MAPA responding in a timely fashion, the company said it anticipated registration of KPfértil as a remineraliser by the end of 2017, following which an application for registration as a fertiliser, to further broaden the market, could be made if thought necessary by the company.

In addition to progressing the agronomic test work and registration processes, the company said it was "actively” continuing to explore off-take agreements and aimed to strengthen its product sales team as the year progressed.

Notwithstanding that certification was still pending, based on discussions to date, the company said it anticipated recording first product sales in the third quarter of the current year as customers started to incorporate KPfértil into their cropping programmes.

The company had “significant scope” to meet customer demand, having recently stockpiled a total of 50,000 tonnes of product.

Finally, as it had previously announced on 28 April, as part of the application process for a full mining licence the company submitted the Final Exploration Report on Arapua to the DNPM, which detailed all the geological, metallurgical and agronomic work completed at Arapua to date.

The company said the DNPM was continuing to consider the report, and once approved by the DNPM, the company had “up to a year” to submit a feasibility study and environmental report as the final steps in the application processed for the full mining licences.

As it had previously announced, once granted, the company would be obliged to pay $1m to the third-party vendors of the Arapua project, and therefore intended to utilise the full period available to submit the remaining reports.

“With a current resource of over 13Mt, which is easily scalable, Arapua will support decades of production and generate significant turnover,” said Harvest chairman Brian McMaster.

“Our focus remains on gaining certification and developing sales channels.”

Harvest said its sales were expected to progress following certification and as market awareness of the product gains traction.

“Given the expected steady flow of news over the coming year, including test results, certification and sales agreements, we are confident that the foundations are in place for a profitable business.”