DISLEY, Sask. — Buffalo Potash has finished drilling all five wells for its Initial Production Module northwest of Regina, but company president and chief operating officer Quinton Hardage says the next phase will determine whether the underground system can connect the wells and produce potash-rich brine at the expected rate.
The milestone completes the drilling portion of the Initial Production Module, or IPM, at Buffalo’s Disley project, which consists of two vertical wells and three horizontal wells. The company announced completion of the final horizontal well Sept. 25.
“We’ve shown we can drill horizontal wells right along the bottom of the richest part of the potash bed and installed equipment (multi-stage packers) in each well that helps us control where fluid goes underground,” Hardage said in an interview with SaskToday.
“Next, we will work to connect and produce potash-rich brine at the expected rate, which the next phase will test.”
That distinction is significant. Completing the wells demonstrates that Buffalo was able to install the underground infrastructure according to its design, but it does not demonstrate that its Horizontal Line-Drive, or HLD, system can successfully produce potash at commercial rates. Buffalo’s own disclosure states that HLD has not operated at commercial scale and that successful drilling does not guarantee successful brine circulation or commercial production.
According to Buffalo Potash Corp., each of the three horizontal wells is about 565 metres long and achieved approximately 95 per cent contact with the targeted basal Belle Plaine clay seam. Each was also equipped with an 11-stage packer system.
Hardage explained that the 95 per cent figure means the wells remained within the thin clay layer for about 95 per cent of their horizontal length. The clay sits beneath the highest-grade potash and is intended to provide a pathway allowing fluid to move between the parallel wells.
“That clay sits just below the highest-grade potash and acts as a natural pathway that allows fluid to flow between the parallel wells to efficiently create a mining plane,” he said.
Attention will now turn to brine circulation. Hardage said circulation is planned to begin in October or November, with the company expecting to establish communication between the wells within seven to 21 days after the process begins.
The first test will be whether the packer systems are connected and communicating underground, he said. Buffalo then plans to increase the injection rate to establish the mining plane before testing the resulting potassium chloride, or KCl-rich, production brine.
The company will monitor the brine to determine the temperature, pressure and injection rate needed to maximize KCl production efficiently, Hardage said.
If that process is successful, the IPM is designed to produce 125,000 tonnes of soluble-grade potash annually, with Buffalo targeting first production in the first quarter of 2027. Those figures remain targets rather than demonstrated production capacity, said Buffalo Potash Corp.
The company has also cautioned investors that its decision to develop the IPM was not based on a feasibility study establishing mineral reserves and demonstrating economic and technical viability. No mineral reserves have been established at Disley, and Buffalo acknowledges proceeding without that level of study carries a higher risk of technical and economic failure.
Hardage said Buffalo has raised roughly $23 million during the past 12 months, which has gone toward advancing the IPM. The company did not provide an updated estimate of the remaining capital required to bring the module into production.
The project has provided work for Saskatchewan residents during development. Hardage said approximately 35 to 45 Saskatchewan residents have been involved when employees of service companies are included.
If the IPM reaches production, Buffalo anticipates about 14 full-time positions associated directly with the module, along with related employment in trucking and service industries, he said.
Water use is another area where Buffalo says its proposed mining system differs from conventional solution mining. Hardage said the mining process would not require fresh water. Instead, Buffalo plans to use brackish water from the Mannville formation and recycle most of that water after the KCl is removed.
Spent brine would be injected deep underground into the Deadwood formation through a disposal well, he said. The IPM is not designed to require surface tailings storage or brine ponds.
The Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment determined in September that the IPM does not meet the definition of a “development” under section 2(d) of the province’s Environmental Assessment Act and therefore does not require an environmental impact assessment. Buffalo submitted its technical proposal to the ministry on Aug. 20 before receiving the ministerial determination announced Sept. 17.
The determination should not be interpreted as provincial verification that HLD will work commercially. The ministry decision concerned whether the proposed IPM met the statutory criteria requiring an environmental impact assessment, while the technology’s commercial performance has yet to be demonstrated.
For Hardage, the potential significance of HLD extends beyond the initial module. He said the modular system could allow potash operations to begin at a smaller scale and expand by adding additional modules, rather than requiring a full-scale development from the outset.
He also said avoiding fresh water in the mining process could potentially make other known Saskatchewan potash deposits more viable for development.
Buffalo’s longer-term plans contemplate two additional 500,000-tonne-per-year mines, Disley East and Disley West. Together with the planned 125,000-tonne IPM, the company’s preliminary economic assessment contemplates eventual production of as much as 1.125 million tonnes annually. Those projections are preliminary and there is no certainty they will be achieved.
The Disley property covers approximately 10,610 hectares about 50 kilometres northwest of Regina, east of the K+S Bethune potash solution mine and north of Mosaic’s Belle Plaine operation. Buffalo cautions that mineralization at neighbouring properties is not necessarily indicative of what will be found or produced at Disley.
For now, the more immediate question is whether Buffalo can move beyond successful drilling and establish consistent underground communication among the wells. The planned brine-circulation tests will provide the company’s next indication of whether its HLD concept can function as intended at the IPM.
