The Arizona Oil & Gas Conservation Commission today approved permits (#982-986) for Southwest Exploration to drill five exploratory wells to evaluate potash deposits near Holbrook. The wells will be drilled on State Trust Lands.
These will be the first tests of the potash resources in three decades or more and the first to be drilled under modern standards for reporting and documenting results. The Holbrook basin deposits have been drawing international attention in the past year or so as the price of potash soared from $50-100 per ton to $500 - 1,000 per ton as global demand for fertilizers surged.
An AZGS report released last fall [right, isopach map], calculated potash resources at 682 million metric tons to 2.27 billion metric tons.