The Woodsmith polyhalite mine.
Britain’s first large scale mine in decades.
By Anglo American.
This high tech super mine, once completed, will be the largest and highest grade polyhalite mine in the world.
That’s because polyhalite has only been discovered in the UK.
A rare commodity that only Britain possesses and thanks to this mine, could see that £100 billion flows into the UK economy over the next 50 years.
Before we get into the mine, it’s important to first, briefly talk about what polyhalite is because it’s the new kid on the block in the fertiliser world.
Polyhalite is a type of potash which some experts claim to be the Rolls Royce of potash. Potash is a potassium rich, salt based mineral which is commonly used as fertilizer all over the world.
The unique advantage of polyhalite over other common forms of potash is that it contains 4 out of the 6 key essential nutrients that all plant life needs to grow.
These key nutrients are potassium, magnesium, calcium and sulphur.
Under the brand name Poly4, Anglo American will be looking to market it as a multi-nutrient, low chloride, ultra low carbon fertilizer certified for organic use that can increase crop yields as well as improve and protect soil conditions.
When compared to the 2 most commonly used potassium fertilizers, Poly4 produces 93% less Co2 than sulphate of potash and 85% less than muriate of potash.
I will provide links in the description for those that would like to learn more about Poly4 as it’s too big a topic for me to cover fully in this video.
Located in, or should i say under, the North York Moors, National Park in Yorkshire, England. 2 miles south of the town of Whitby.
Here is where they found a potential resource of 2.69 billion tonnes of polyhalite which would give the mine a life span of around 100 years and an identified reserve of 290 million tonnes which gives the mine a lifespan of over 30 years.
Originally deposited around 260 million years ago when an ancient sea dried up, the polyhalite was actually discovered by accident.
The polyhalite was first discovered back in the 1930’s by oil prospectors who were drilling for oil.
Only decades later was it realised to be a valuable mineral thanks to two geologists whom which the mine was fittingly named after.
The mine is set to go into production in 2027 and is costing around £6 billion and will create over 2000 jobs for the local area. Over 1000 of which will be long term.
The mine near Whitby will be accessed via 2 main shafts. Each of these shafts will be 1.5km deep. That’s almost 1 mile deep which will make it the deepest mine in Europe.
Due to it’s location, a much treasured national park, strict criteria were set in place in order for the mine to be built.
In order to not disturb the protected area of natural beauty, the mine had to be designed with minimal impact.
In fact, unless you have a helicopter, you would never even know it was there. And even then, it would just look like any other farm buildings.
The mine has been designed to be completely invisible to passer-by’s.
They even built a curve into the access road so anyone driving by would only see woodland.
When constructing a deep mine, you would typically have large winding towers at the surface which would be used for lowering and lifting people, machinery and material.
But being located in a national park, Woodsmiths giant winding towers, also known as headframes, will be hidden in 60m deep chambers to minimalize visual impact. A world first in mining.
These chambers will be constructed using an engineering method called diaphragm walling.
Once finished, the first 60m of the shaft is then excavated which will provide room for the 45m tall winding towers and other infrastructure.
The main mine shafts will then be mechanically sunk using an innovative, 3rd generation machine called a Shaft Boring Roadheader, a design inspired by tunnel boring machines.
This SBR is faster and safer than traditional drill and blasting methods.
Once lowered into the foreshaft, the SBR will then start it’s 1 mile journey down to the polyhalite.
Rotating in a star pattern, the cutting head can cut 200 millimetres deep with each pass. Every 5 of these cycles, the shaft becomes 1 meter deeper.
Material is then sucked back up the shaft and into skips which are then hoisted to the surface for either re-use or clearance.
As it descends, depending on the rock formation, the SBR will line the shaft with either steel or concrete,
https://www.poly4.com/
https://uk.angloamerican.com/our-fertiliser
https://uk.angloamerican.com/
Crop trials by ICL: https://icl-growingsolutions.com/agriculture/trials/
Footage in this video has either been obtained with permission from the original copyright owner or used in compliance with section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976 where allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. No infringement intended.
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Hello everyone. Someone in the comments has brought something to my attention that i feel i should clear up. When i said…. "a commodity that only Britain possesses….." i was simply referring to the previous statement of…."That’s because, a polyhalite seam with such high purity, and in a location that allows processing and shipping to be viable, has only been discovered in the UK." To me, this statement clearly implies other seems of polybasite have been discovered elsewhere, which they have. But only the UK has a seam this big AND with such purity AND in a location that makes it minable. That in itself being "the commodity." Only 1 person has mentioned this so i'm assuming most of you knew what i meant. One statement cancelling out the other kind of thing. Perhaps i could've worded it better. Anyway i just wanted to clear that up because my channel is not about clickbait, misleading anyone, misinformation, politics or biases! I pride myself on honesty and integrity.
Interesting. I had no idea this was a thing. I wonder what billionaire will make all the money and pay no taxes on this. England isn't going to get as much out of this as it should
Like to no CO2 footprint…… But the build project very interesting
And with all these tech and machinery- expect the polyhalite to cost what an African marginalized farmer can afford to allocate from what he can eke out
Dont forget that there is 0.04% co2 in the atmosphere, all plant life dies at 0.02%…
I assume Tom Scott will be allowed to ride on the 23-mile conveyor belt.
We could use some good news after Brexit and the imploding economy lol.
Which YouTubers will be the fist to walk (urbex) the “twenty-three mile tunnel,” after descending “Britain’s deepest hole?” Operational in 2027, will somebody conquer it before then? Will YouTube still exist in twenty 2027? Will it come out that there is a huge hidden agenda behind all this? I can hear the conspiracy theories being shouted from the keyboards now, and in the future. I’ve somewhat picked it apart, and I can think of many many conspiracy theories.
But a deep hole, right on the east coast, a twenty three mile tunnel that cannot be seen from above, or on the ground, sounds more like a nuclear battlement in the making, with extra long underground storage and reload tunnel? Let them keyboards start firing, pun intended.
👌🇬🇧👹🇺🇸🤘m-E-m
Yep, Sirius Minerals, ripped off lots of small investors then sold out for sweet f.a. to A.A.
Great video, fascinating project to be in.
how have i never heard about this?! As a brit this is crazy that we are not talking about this. But i suppose, thats the going fad, cant possibly acknowledge anything good about the UK…
Yay! Brexit Britain bites back!⏩
Ah – yes, and this is state owned, right?
Unappy local noises
NONE of the money will meaningfully enter the local or national economy.
It'll all be sent straight overseas through legal loopholes to ensure next to none is taxed.
So they expect the local & national Governments to foot the bill of local infrastructure while the firm makes next to no contributions to their use of it.
Many Sirius Minerals (the original Company) shareholders facilitated about £500m of seed capital and CAPEX for this project and were then duly shat upon from a great height when the British government refused to underwrite the last part of the capital that SM was trying to raise to complete this project. Then, Anglo basically stepped in and bought out existing shareholders in a fire sale.
At one point I had a book valuation of about £250k in SM. Absolutely shocking what happened. Bo Jo fucked this, fracking (Cuadrilla), and the UK economy with the Covid mitigation strategy. The irony of him now making millions hasn't passed me by!
This was fascinating. Thank you for making the video.
This still won't be good enough for eco-cultists. May as well shut it down now and just live in caves.
How long can we keep on drilling holes in the ground and taking products out. It is all about stock market profits for the few. All that concrete. You are kidding.
I live in Australia, an expat from the UK, and I have just discovered this Mining News. I take note that a Tunnel is being bored, which will carry the mined minerals through the Underground Tunnel by Conveying Systems – and Conveyor Belting. 23 miles for a Conveying System would require 46 miles of Conveyor Belt, because of the return path. The ironic thing about this, the company that was a world leader in Conveyor Belts has just closed down recently. This Hull company would have been able to manufacture / supply this belting, and then transport (by road) just 60 miles to the Wood Smith Mine site.And all with (local) technical assistance This lengthy Conveying System will require a high level of maintenance over its Operational Life.
WEF won't like it Bill gates will be looking to buy the land and close it down
I heard the mine was so deep, that some miners from Perth broke thru a mine wall- said " Giday mate"
They've made it so environmentally positive that the climate activists have nothing to complain about-hence no PR
How long before the loony bunch decides it is all bad for us. Think dtch frmrs.
You should narrate on Euro News, TransWorld Sport, and corporate videos for Lufthansa GB
This begs the question: What about the other two micro-nutrients plants need?
Very interesting and such a positive story for the country. One question, it is sent directly to a port… no mention of local access to the product for the local UK public?
Might as well just call it a potash mine without all the verbal bs.
Why do we need foreign investment, if this product is so good wouldn’t our government have been better off funding this, far better than the HS2 debacle
Our company has 2500 hectares in Eastern Europe, phosphate is king. Polyhalite it is way too expensive especially the one from UK because we have a large part of the land in the European Union., we buy the fertilizer from India and China now, but soon we will start buying from Russia again because it is the cheapest .The price dictates because 80% of the production goes to China anyway.
I just hope that with this project (unlike North Sea gas) the costs of decommissioning this facility will be factored in, and not simply passed on to the taxpayer once finished – and the profits nicely creamed off into pockets. I know… I'm a dreamer.
Actually good news for once…..