Harvest Minerals Limited, (LON:HMI) has submitted the final exploration report for its Arapuá fertiliser project in Brazil.
The report is a requirement of the licence application process and once approved by the Brazilian Departamento Nacional de Produção Mineral (DNPM), Harvest will have a year to put together a feasibility study and make a full licence application.
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In the meantime, trial mining will continue at the project with approximately 45,000 tons of material mined and stockpiled so far.
Brian McMaster, executive chairman, added: “Commencing the process of obtaining a Full Mining Licence is an important step and being able to operate under our existing license criteria in the interim means no interruption to business.
“The test work that has been underway for some months is progressing well.”
Harvest has commissioned a range of agronomic tests, including on traditional summer crops of carrots and potatoes to be supervised by the Institute of Agricultural Research of Cerrado (IPACER).
The company expects to start harvesting the initial crop of carrots and potatoes at the end of May 2017, with biometric analysis expected to take place in June.
Results from agronomic test work on immature and mature coffee plantations with grower Veloso should be available next month with May with biometric analysis complete by July.
The timing of the results should help it catch the traditional fertiliser buying season of August and September each year, Harvest added.
Harvest added.it expects it will be late 2018 when a full permit for Arapua may come through, in line with previous estimates of 1-2 years.