Market Opportunity.
The Great Atlantic Salt Project is strategically located to significantly penetrate a robust eastern North American road salt market that relies heavily on imports.
Sharply higher overseas shipping costs, general supply chain issues, and ageing mines in the United States and Canada have combined to pose a threat to long-term security of supply of high-grade rock salt necessary to keep our roads and highways safe during winter.
Approximately 25 million tonnes of de-icing salt (150 pounds for every American) is scattered on U.S. roads annually with approximately 30% to 40% of that demand filled by imports from Chile and North Africa. No economic substitutes or alternatives for rock salt exist in most applications.
Potential low cost Great Atlantic production, with such easy access to the U.S. east coast, could alleviate the reliance on overseas imports, while also providing important supply to markets in eastern Canada.
Just like at Goderich, high-grade Great Atlantic salt also has potential to serve other verticals as indicated in the table below.
“Salt plays a big role in our everyday lives,” explains Atlas President Rowland Howe. “The ‘History of Salt’ was a New York Times best seller. What I find most exciting about salt is the multitude of uses and the place it has had in history.
“Great Atlantic has the potential to become the biggest and best underground salt mine in the world. The market is there and the project would be highly scalable to meet demand for generations, making this a very valuable asset.”
Target Markets
De-icing Markets
United States: 29 Mt
Canada: 10 Mt
Domestic Production – Rock & Solar for use in De-icing
United States: 16 Mt
Canada: 11 Mt
(less 3.5 Mt export)
Imports:
United States: 13 Mt
Canada: 3 Mt
The opportunity to build a state of the art salt mine “factory” that is flexible and scalable at a low production cost with the obvious logistics potential is very compelling