Laserfiche WebLink
• <br />sapponification. Also, the cavity could contribute one organic impurity while at the same <br />time it is absorbing another. <br />This in part explains the critical need for process research and development to work with <br />fresh liquors from an active solution mining process. Solution mining and crystallization is a <br />dynamic and often unpredictable process poorly simulated in the lab. This is not specific to <br />solution mining nahcolite in the Piceance Basin. It is the norm in the industry. <br />The point is, success at White River Nahcolite was not quick or easy. It did not come from <br />lab simulation but years of real experience, fresh liquors and much trial and error. It is not a <br />good assumption that success at White River is transferable to the Rock School Project. The <br />projects are 3 miles apart and when we (WRNM) moved 100 feet within the White River <br />well field it was often significant. White River mines a single very pure white bedded <br />nahcolite bed which does not exist on the Rock School Lease. Instead, AmerAlia plans to <br />mine brown disseminated nahcolite. The brown color is the result of impurities: White <br />River's solution mining temperature experience is in the range of 160 f to 220 f cavities. <br />AmerAlia intends to develop a 300F range mining and crystallization process. This process <br />involves a different injection liquor chemistry and process. <br />Successfully mining a single cavity is only a step in developing mining technology. We <br />must develop wellfield technology where multiple cavities interact. The interaction can <br />unacceptably impact resource recovery, the mining process and overlaying resources unless <br />controlled. AmerAlia plans to develop an acceptable cavity, pillar and barrier pillar system. <br />Included is the effect of temperature creeping into the pillars and the shale becoming <br />increasingly plastic. <br />Jerry Daub: <br />One thing that we need to point out, too, is that White River Nahcolite is producing now out <br />of what we call a Boies Bed, which is a white crystalline nahcolite that is up to 26 ft thick. It <br />is very close to this dissolution surface in the hydrostratigraphic column. They're using <br />horizontal drain holes to create their cavities. They're long and lenticular in nature and <br />they're in the "cream of the crop," so to speak, with regard the nahcolite. It's a white <br />crystalline material and it's very thick. So, what's being done out there now with White <br />River is totally different from what AmerAlia is proposing to do, which is to mine much less <br />pure thin beds and disseminated material. There are three beds that are 6 to 7 ft thick. <br />There's the TI at the bottom, the Greeno and then the Love Bed. Then, in between, there are <br />numerous disseminated nahcolite crystals, aggregates and nodules held in an oil shale matrix. <br />This must be mined also. That's part of the experimental process we have to prove. We're <br />going to be developing well completion and mining techniques, both from the standpoint of <br />drilling and completing tubulars, and positioning the tubulars up and down to achieve <br />acceptable resource recovery. Also, technology needs to be developed for controlling the <br />resource recovery using a gas cap of some sort. That may be air, nitrogen, CO2, or <br />methane —it depends on the final design. <br />There are actually quite a large number of areas that AmerAlia considers to be unproven <br />technology at this time. The need for an experimental project is clear. <br />5 <br />