Could Potash Mining Open Up Trillion Dollar Market In Area?

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By Linda Kor
    How do you measure the value of a piece of land? In the case of land in the southern portion of the Petrified Forest and its vicinity, approximately 600 square miles could be worth trillions of dollars.
    A recently completed survey by the Arizona Geological Survey shows that the area defined by the Holbrook salt basin underlies about 600 square miles of potash that ranges up to about 40 ft. thick, with the gross volume of potash being 1.36 cubic miles or 2.5 billion tons.
    Potash is a hot commodity that has been used throughout history in the manufacture of glass and soap, and as a fertilizer. The market for potash is at an all-time high, with prices going from $100 per ton 10 years ago to an anticipated $1,000 or more per ton by the end of 2008.
    The discovery of the potash in this region isn’t new. According to information provided by the survey, in the 1960s and 1970s Arkla Exploration Company and Duval Corporation drilled more than 100 holes to delineate the potash in the Holbrook salt basin, but to date there has been no commercial production of pot-ash in Arizona by conventional or solution mining.
    The survey speculates that one of the reasons for lack of production in Arizona may have been due to the overproduction of potash in Saskatchewan during a period of government subsidies and a global glut of potash in the late 1960s. Another factor in the lack of exploitation of Arizona potash may be that the area underlain by potash in east central Arizona is approximately centered under Petrified Forest National Park, and since the passage of The Petrified Forest Expansion Act of 2004, the proposed park area containing potash has substantially increased.
    According to the survey, the location of the potash under the park would require a creative approach to full access and future development of Arizona’s strategic potash deposits.
    Park Superintendent Cliff Spencer noted that a protection act in the early 1940s protects the park from any potash mining.
    “The expansion lands we hope to purchase, of course, will depend on what funds are provided by Con-gress,” stated Spencer. “I don’t want to speculate on what would happen if the property value should in-crease as a result of the potash mining potential.”
    In addition to that area, a combination of state trust land, and public and private land is available for potential development east and southwest of the national park. This land includes the 28,000-acre Twin Buttes Ranch owned by Mike Fitzgerald. The ranch was targeted for purchase by Congress as part of the expansion project for the park, but funding has stalled and Fitzgerald recently put his ranch up for sale for $15 million.
    Whether potash mining will be an economic boon to this region is something yet to be discovered.