Intrepid Announces the Successful Completion of Two Drilling Projects at Its Moab Solar Solution Potash Mine

Denver, CO, July 10, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Intrepid Potash, Inc. ("Intrepid," "we," or "our") (NYSE:IPI) today announced the successful completion of the Well 45 and Well 46 drilling projects at its solar solution potash mine in Moab, Utah. This is the second update on Intrepid’s major capital projects included in its 2023 capital program.

Key Highlights & Management Commentary

We successfully completed the Well 45 and Well 46 drilling projects at our solar solution potash mine in Moab, Utah, in time for the 2023 evaporation season. Both projects will help us deliver on our key goals of maximizing brine availability and underground brine residence time, which is expected to lead to improved brine grade and higher and more consistent production.

Bob Jornayvaz, Intrepid's Executive Chairman and CEO commented: “I’m very pleased to share that we completed two additional potash growth projects on the planned schedule to have them commissioned in time for the 2023 summer evaporation season. Successfully executing both projects required a very high level of technical expertise and our new design for Well 45 led to significant cost savings compared to our previous horizontal caverns due to the single-well design. While our Moab potash operation has been our most consistent production asset, these projects are expected to help ensure this continues to be a world-class operation for many years to come. Our focus continues to be successful project execution across our operations, and I’m very encouraged by the results so far.”

Background on Moab Drilling Projects

Well 45 is a newly designed, single-well cavern system with three interlocking laterals that targets new ore in Potash Bed 9. This single-well cavern is designed to have a long operational life with the laterals completed over approximately 18,000-feet of horizontal drilling. We have commenced the initial phase of cavern development and brine measurements have shown good availability of high-grade ore. After cavern development, we will switch to injecting salt-saturated brine and begin selective solution mining. Due to the nature of solution mining and the residence time required to selectively mine potash, we expect to see the benefit of Well 45 beginning in the 2024 evaporation season. The total capital cost was approximately $11.5 million, approximately 40% lower compared to our previous two-well cavern systems.