Reward Minerals executive director Michael Ruane tops up before tapping investors

A capital raising is imminent for the mining minnow looking to dust off a processing plant that caused the demise of Australia’s inaugural potash producer. Australian Securities Exchange-listed Reward Minerals on Tuesday slipped into a trading halt pending “an announcement in relation to a capital raising”. Reward executive director Michael Ruane on Monday acquired $31,143 worth of Reward shares. He holds a 41 per cent slice of the $12.6 million explorer. Reward last month signed a deal to scoop up the mothballed Beyondie sulphate of potash plant for $2.13m. The purchase will be funded via an extension of a loan provided by Mr Ruane, according to the company. Reward said it bought the Beyondie plant at a fraction of its replacement cost and will likely transport the plant from the remote Little Sandy Desert to its own Carnarvon potash project about 1000km west. Nedlands-based Reward in February tried, and failed, to buy the entirety of the Beyondie project for $19.8m. Beyondie was owned by Kalium Lakes, which collapsed in August last year owing more than $200m to lenders — including the Federal Government’s Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility. Receivers fielded a bid from fellow ASX-listed potash play Agrimin seeking to buy the Beyondie project in September last year, but that $45m deal fell apart. In October 2021 Australia’s first potash was produced via Beyondie, however the project was plagued with technical issues as Kalium Lakes endeavoured to ramp up Beyondie towards its 120,000 tonne-a-year nameplate capacity. Reward believes it has developed a new processing technology — termed the ‘Reward Process’ —that circumvents those technical issues. “The Reward Process does not utilise the prohibitively costly and complicated flotation method for separating potassium salts from magnesium salts which has been a technical and financial failure within the WA sulphate of potash industry,” Reward chief executive Lorry Hughes has said. Potash — predominantly used as a fertiliser ingredient — has struggled to build momentum as an industry in WA in the past six years, despite there being a raft of early-stage projects in the State. Shares in Reward last changed hands at 5.8¢ each.