Great Atlantic Salt Deposit Highlights:
“Some of the best salt cores I’ve seen in my 30-year career” – Rowland Howe
- High-grade, homogeneous, very thick and large, and unusually shallow by industry standards;
- NI-43-101 independently verified salt resource featuring 383 Mt Indicated (grading 96.0% salt) and 868 Mt Inferred (grading 95.2% salt). Within these resources, Mineral Reserves in the Probable category total 88.1 Mt at 96.0% salt (refer to note below);
- Each widely-spaced completed drill hole in 2022 encountered a thick salt bed at varying depths between approximately 250 meters and 335 meters;
- The final drill hole (CC-9) leading into the Feasibility Study cut a gross interval of salt over 333 meters (1,092 feet) starting from a depth of 243 meters. It was collared approximately 250 meters east of previous easternmost drill hole CC-4;
- 2022 drilling did not find the limits of this minimum 2.5-km-long deposit trending northeast toward the Turf Point Port;
- Great Atlantic and Compass Minerals’ Goderich mine (in operation since the 1950’s) share similar geological characteristics, though the mining depth at Goderich is 600 meters under Lake Huron which is accessed through three vertical shafts;
- The deposit at Great Atlantic, which will become the first major salt deposit in North America accessed through inclined ramps, starts at a depth more than 300 meters shallower than Goderich and features a salt bed that is thicker than Goderich by orders of magnitude.
Note: In its August 2023 Feasibility Study, SLR Consulting Canada (Ltd.) updated the Great Atlantic Mineral Resource estimate. The Mineral Resource estimate is in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 and is dated May 11, 2023.
Notes:
- CIM (2014) definitions were followed for Mineral Resources.
- Mineral Resources are estimated without a reporting cut-off grade. Reasonable Prospects for Eventual Economic Extraction were instead demonstrated by reporting within Mineable “Stope” Optimised (MSO) shapes, with a minimum height of 5 m, minimum width of 20 m, length of 40 m, and minimum grade of 90% NaCl, with a 5 m minimum pillar width between shapes.
- Bulk density is 2.16 t/m3.
- Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.
- Mineral Resources are inclusive of Mineral Reserves.
- Salt prices are not directly incorporated into the Mineral Resource MSO minimum target grades, however, the mean Mineral Resource grades exceed the 95.0% NaCl (± 0.5%) specification outlined in ASTM Designation D632-12 (2012).
- Numbers may not add due to rounding.
From Deposit to "Salt Factory"
Our Vision:
- Atlas Salt envisions the most technologically advanced underground salt mine in North America – an environmentally friendly, low-cost and highly scalable operation using inclined ramp access and continuous miners;
- This planned state-of-the-art “Salt Factory” would be the first new underground salt operation in North America in nearly three decades. Only one new mine has been built in the last 60 years, creating more than a dozen ageing mines and contributing to a significant domestic production shortfall.
- Great Atlantic is a homogeneous resource and therefore carries limited geological and development risks – no metallurgical or chemical processing issues, typical with traditional metal deposits;
- Simple physical processing – mine, crush, screen and load – in a very favorable jurisdiction that’s eager to push additional industrial development.
Mining Method
Incline Slope Salt Extraction
Salt mines are among the safest of mines. They are also the most comfortable to work in. Continuous mining produces smaller lumps of rock using a machine similar to the one used for building tunnels. It bores into the salt, extracting lumps that are then crushed into smaller pieces.
These are some of the best salt cores I’ve seen in my 30-year career.
Rowland Howe
President, Atlas Salt
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