Dakhla Phosphate Development
Stage: Research
Developing a resource around an integrated industrial pathway.
An integrated development programme, from mine to fertilizer.
The Dakhla programme targets a staged pathway from resource understanding and mine development to preparation, processing and industrial products.
Each stage is tied to evidence required for the next decision.
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First: resource and readiness
Rights, exploration data, the resource model, ore testing and mine planning establish the development basis.
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Next: initial products
Product specification, preparation, logistics and market acceptance precede any commercial-availability announcement.
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Then: value addition
Granulation, fertilizers, beneficiation and downstream integration progress through gates tied to ore, technology, utilities and product validation.
The New Valley programme
The New Valley programme is the route by which a phosphate resource becomes a finished chemical and fertilizer product inside Egypt.
It starts at exploration and resource definition and ends at a complex combining phosphoric acid and compound fertilizers.
Each stage opens when the one before it is complete.
- Exploration A drilling and resource-assessment programme on the New Valley blocks.
- Mining Extracting phosphate ore from the blocks once the resource is defined.
- Beneficiation Flotation and scrubbing to upgrade the ore to a concentrate suitable for manufacturing.
- Single superphosphate Reacting phosphate rock with sulphuric acid to produce SSP.
- Granulation Granulating the product to the size set by the specification.
- Phosphoric acid Wet-process phosphoric acid production with an integrated sulphuric acid unit.
- Compound fertilizers Converting the concentrate and acid into DAP and MAP fertilizers.
Objective
To turn New Valley phosphate into finished fertilizer products in Egypt, rather than exporting raw ore.