This article is a sponsored feature from Mining.com.au partner Atlas Salt. It is not financial advice. Talk to a registered financial expert before making investment decisions.
Atlas Salt (TSX-V:SALT) is developing a unique story for the mining industry, bringing the Great Atlantic Salt Project to fruition on the west coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
The Great Atlantic Salt Project will be the first new salt mine built in North America in more than 25 years, feeding a significant gap in the salt supply market across the Northeast US and Canada’s Eastern provinces.
Chief Executive Officer Nolan Peterson is focused on spreading the word about the salt industry, the Great Atlantic Salt Project, and the key opportunities to “spice up your portfolio with the first spice that anyone ever used”.
Great Atlantic Salt Project: Shallow deposit, renewable power, and deep–water logistics
Peterson notes that the Great Atlantic Salt Project will fuel the regional demand for de-icing salt.
“The Northeast US, Midwest, Ontario, Québec, and Canada’s Atlantic provinces are all major users of de-icing and road salt,” Peterson says.
“It’s a road safety issue, it’s an infrastructure security issue, and we are the only publicly traded salt development company that’s looking to develop a new mine.”
Existing salt mines in North America are all at least 25 years or older already and are all very deep, Peterson explains. Most of them are 500–600m deep to start, with some going down to around 1,000m deep.
They also mostly sit underwater, so they need to deal with water inflows as well as the permitting, environmental, and health and safety concerns that come along with it.
Peterson explains that a key differentiator for the Great Atlantic Salt Project is that the deposit is shallow.
“Shallow means that instead of being deep, the deposit is a horizontal drift access mine,” Peterson says.
“It also means that the deposit doesn’t sit underwater, minimising both the safety and environmental challenges.”
Peterson also notes that the mine should easily get environmental approval as it will be tied into power through Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, allowing it to be 100% battery electric in operations, meaning it will be fully fuelled by renewable resources with no diesel consumption or drilling, blasting or explosives, and no greenhouse gas emissions.
The Great Atlantic Salt Project is also 3km away from Turf Point, a deep-water port, which Peterson highlights as a major advantage.
“The fact is logistics are a massive component for salt mines. Even if you found a new mine, you wouldn’t have the logistics already, like we have.
“That’s what makes us viable.
“We have the opportunity here to build a new mine that is cutting edge and where the margins make sense.”
Infrastructure: Competitive shipping, renewable energy, and port access
The Great Atlantic Salt Project’s advantages shine through when Peterson explains the details of what can make this project come to fruition.
“We are similar in so many ways to other underground salt mines in North America, but have so many more advantages, like being shallow rather than deep, using battery electric instead of diesel equipment, and having this deep-water port on our doorstep, which will be one of the largest ports for salt movement.”
While a lot of mines have ports nearby, they often rely on smaller ocean-going vessels for bulk shipping. Atlas Salt is able to utilise 50,000-tonne Supramax bulk carriers for shipping, effectively meaning they are able to use bigger vessels and ship more tonnage at once.
The proximity of the project to the salt’s intended market delivers significant competitive advantages over its international competitors, predominantly by de-risking the supply chain.
The shorter shipping distances, access to road, port, and electricity infrastructure provide both cost and sustainability-linked advantages as well.
“We just have these advantages across the board that make our project cheaper, and, at the end of the day, it all comes down to that.”
Early works position Atlas Salt for construction readiness
Atlas Salt has already completed two feasibility studies on the project, including an updated study released in October 2025 that outlined strong economics including C$188 million a year in free cash flow after tax on a mine life of 24 years, based on proven and probable resources.
The resource has already been drill-defined, so there’s no more drilling required to get started. There is also no metallurgy required as the mined product just involves crushing.
“We’re not doing any complicated mining or metallurgy, we just simply produce the salt,” Peterson says.
“We grind it, crush it to size, and then put it on a conveyor belt and take it to the port for loading.”
Atlas Salt is well on track, with Peterson noting that all engineering has been completed on the Feasibility Study, environmental assessment approvals are in place, and that the company has full Indigenous and community support as well as support from the government.
With these key approvals in place, Atlas Salt commenced early works at the project in February 2026, including permitted land clearing, grubbing, and site preparation to establish the mine site footprint and to support any subsequent construction phases.
Peterson notes that Atlas Salt is now in the financing stage, which is the next major step in building the project itself.
Investor education and market curiosity to fuel momentum
While the appetite is strong for the salt market, Peterson notes significant differences from better-known mining industries that he previously spent time working in.
“I spent 20 years in the gold and copper industries. There will always be that steady demand for those commodities, but when I sit down with an investor, the first thing they love to say is that they know nothing about salt but are really curious to learn more,” Peterson says.
“It’s a curiosity and I view it as an opportunity as opposed to a burden to educate the market about salt.”
That said, the salt market doesn’t have that natural interest that other commodities like gold and copper do.
“Nobody’s seeking salt mines to invest in, so we do have to work a bit harder. We don’t have those tailwinds pushing us.”
Despite the general lack of knowledge about the salt industry, Peterson does say that the reception to Atlas Salt and the Great Atlantic Salt Project has been very positive from the market.
“They see the fundamentals, they see how it’s just like mining, but is so much less risky,” Peterson says.
“Then, they look at the numbers and realise the money here is the same as any other project. They can make money off of this.”
North American shortages highlight key opportunities
Peterson notes that the lack of understanding of the salt industry has meant a lack of funding and a lack of development for new mines in North America, which has led to a situation where Canada and the US have to import about 25–35% of its salt yearly, including in the de-icing sector.
The market has also seen de-icing salt shortages across 2025 and into 2026, with increased pricing highlighting significant fragility in the salt market despite consistent demand, especially across the winter months.
“Nobody’s looking for salt because with the lack of viable new projects, it’s just easier to continue to import salt from countries like Chile or Egypt predominantly to satisfy our salt needs,” Peterson says.
“North American salt producers are expensive to produce on a relative scale.
“They can supply a radius around them that is around 150km and that’s bound by how much it costs to produce the salt as well as how much it costs to truck the salt to the destination. At a certain point, these producers are not making any money.”
On the flip side, foreign salt is relatively low cost to produce, but as soon as it gets put onto a boat, the cost of global shipping makes it more expensive.
“This creates this equilibrium where the high cost of shipping salt is balanced by the high cost of producing salt,” Peterson says.
“Then Atlas Salt comes in and with both a lower cost of production and a lower cost of shipping.”
Next steps toward construction
As Peterson notes, the biggest upcoming milestone is the financing for the project as the company needs to raise the capital to build it up.
Atlas Salt is working with Endeavour Financial on a financing package, with a view towards obtaining 60% of its initial capital from senior secured lenders, major infrastructure banks, export credit agencies, sovereign wealth funds, and similar financial outlets.
This type of financing is generally viewed as some of the highest quality in the market and generally unavailable to typical resource sector projects.
The company expects that this will be realised before the end of 2026, allowing them to continue with the construction of the project, at which point they expect more equity investors to come forward with the remainder of capital required.
Peterson is a strong believer in the opportunities behind salt and the Great Atlantic Salt Project as a core driver for regional salt supply.
“This is an opportunity to add a very strong, stable, recession-proof commodity to your portfolio,” Peterson says.
“It’s lower risk, but with the kind of higher returns you would expect from a typical mining program.”
With shallow access, renewable power, and deep-water logistics, Atlas Salt is redefining salt mining for the modern era. As financing advances, the Great Atlantic Salt Project is set to become a cornerstone of North America’s salt supply chain.
Write to Amy Rotman at Mining.com.au
Images: Atlas Salt and Mining.com.au
