Construction is progressing at American Pacific Borates’ (ABR) Fort Cady borate mine in southern California, with concrete being poured last week for a materials warehouse. The warehouse is 90 meters long. Also, ABR, in conjunction with the University of Connecticut (UConn), is planning a second round of crop trials for its boron enriched SOP (SOP+B) specialty fertilizer.
“This round will target greenhouse crops that require SOP for growth,” ABR Managing Director and CEO Mike Schlumpberger said. “The second round will incorporate data obtained from the initial crop trial and aims to expand on the positive results achieved.”
The company said it expects to be in a position to confirm the crops and trial parameters shortly.
Fort Cady is a highly rare and large colemanite deposit and is the largest known contained borate occurrence in the world not owned by the two major borate producers Rio Tinto and Eti Maden. The JORC compliant mineral resource estimate and reserve comprises 13.93 million metric tons (mt) of contained boric acid.
