AMEC Americas, engineering and project management company, was appointed by Allana Potash to carry out frontend engineering design (Feed) as well as work on the one-million-tonne-a-year muriate of potash (MoP) Danakil project in Ethiopia.

The agreement between the two firms is concluded after the preparatory work gets under way in anticipation of the completion of project financing.

The work AMEC will be undertaking is expected to take six months and it is going to do it from its office in Saskatchewan, Canada. Number of facilities will be included in the study phase of the project. According to Mining Weekly, the facilities include process, maintenance and service buildings; conveyance to and from the ponds; product storage; truck loading; power generation and fuel storage; general roads and other project infrastructure; temporary and permanent work camps; and port facilities.

AMEC will be conducting different tasks when it reaches the engineering phase. It will prepare a project management plan; develop a project engineering, procurement and construction schedule; prepare the principal design criteria; complete civil, concrete and steel material take-off agreements; and initiate procurement through formal requests for quotation for long-lead items.

Allana President and CEO, Farhad Abasov, said,” We look forward to working with AMEC to optimise and finalise the project design and advance the project to the next level”.

He further noted, “The initiation of the Feed work is a first for the potash industry in Ethiopia and represents another milestone accomplishment for Allana and the government of Ethiopia,”

Source: Mining Weekly