Sirius aims for potash big league

Aim-traded miner Sirius Minerals has ambitions to become one of the world's major potash producers by the end of the decade - and it's not looking badly positioned. It boasts potash assets in both Australia and the US but the main focus of the company's activities is a potentially huge source of the mineral fertilizer near Whitby in North Yorkshire. It gained access to that site in January through the £25m acquisition of York Potash.

These figures, however, really only reflect the progress that the company has made towards establishing a definitive resource estimate for that Whitby prospect - which management already describes as "one of the world's single largest potash intersections". This view was given credence by highly promising coring and wire-line tests conducted last month. Sirius also has the benefit of a huge amount of seismic data previously collected at the site by Rio Tinto during the 1970s. Chief executive Chris Fraser reckons the group should be in a position to publish an informed resource estimate for the site during the first quarter of next year. Although, prior to October's resource update, Liberum Capital's mid-range valuation for the North Yorkshire prospect alone was 26p a share.

visible-status-Standard story-url-SiriusMinerals_Results_141111.xml