Newfoundland: Western onshore potash drilling planned

Red Moon Potash Inc., St. John’s, is conducting predrill planning, permitting, and procurement work towards a 2013 drill program for potash/salt in the Bay St. George basin onshore southwestern Newfoundland.

The company has tendered for a rig and applied to government regulators for approval. The 2002 Captain Cook-1 drill hole encountered 400 m of evaporites consisting of 240 m of anhydrite and 160 m of halite including an encouraging 5 gross m of potash grading up to 20.4% potassium oxide at a depth of 287 m.

Red Moon, spun off in 2012 from Vulcan Minerals Inc., will step out from that discovery hole to better understand the area’s potash distribution. The company has an extensive seismic database to integrate new drill results and better define the distribution of the evaporite rocks that contain the potash beds.

The Bay St. George property lies in the Maritimes basin of Atlantic Canada that hosts the Sussex, NB, potash mine operated by Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan.