Costs at the factory are lower than at conventional mines, which are often hundreds of meters deep. Solar evaporation is less energy intensive and the climate allows mountains of potash to be stored outside and Here is more info regarding Gres porcellanato sassuolo have a look at our website. sold when prices are high.
The main culprit is the drying up of the Jordan river, its main tributary, as communities upstream draw on it for farming and drinking. But mineral extraction makes the crisis worse - of the 700-800 million cubic meters of water lost each year, 250-350 million cubic meters is due to mining, ceramiche Ceramica sassuolo Israel estimates.
The government believes ICL will agree to its proposal, first because the firm will have the right of first refusal but also because it too has a powerful reason to scrap the current concession: an article that gives the government the rights to interfere in investments starting in 2020.
"We think everyone has an interest in making the tender earlier," the official said. "The value of the asset gets lower as we get closer to the end of the concession period and it's unclear what will happen after 2030."
"This is a one-time opportunity, as the concession comes to an end and we enter a new period, to set standards for the factory's operations and the environmental impact on the whole area," said Galit Cohen, deputy director-general for policy and planning at the Environmental Protection Ministry.
According to their annual reports, ICL produced 3.7 million tonnes of potash at the Dead Sea in 2017 vs 2.1 million tonnes extracted by Arab Potash, which has exclusive rights on the Jordanian side that expire in 2058.
Cohen was on the high-ranking inter-ministerial committee that produced a preliminary report in May with guidelines that aim to balance profits with environmental interests in the Dead Sea for the first time.
When the company was privatised in the 1990s, the government kept a "golden share" that gave it some oversight, in addition to the obligation under the terms of the concession that the company seek its approval for any new investment.
Up to now, the Israeli government has rarely intervened in the operations of the biggest extractor: the Dead Sea Works, formerly state-owned and now operated under a 70-year concession by Israel Chemicals (ICL).
The factory's new license, whose term has not been set, will include pumping limits coupled with financial incentives to use less water, the committee's report said. The amount of territory open to quarrying and drilling for wells will be reduced.
With revenue of $5.4 billion in 2017, ICL manufactures a range of products from industrial chemicals to food additives. It is the world's sixth-largest producer of potash and supplies about a third of the world's bromine, used in fire retardants.
ICL said in a July 5 letter to the committee that its report raised "complicated legal, economic, operational and engineering issues, and ICL has significant reservations about part of what was said in it".
The Dead Sea has been popular for millennia for health seekers and tourists who come to float in its high-density waters and smear its mud on their skin. Without intervention, it will keep losing water, essential to the mineral extraction process, though experts believe it may eventually reach equilibrium at a much smaller size.
Israel wants to re-tender the Dead Sea mining concession as much as eight years ahead of schedule, in 2022. It is motivated not only by environmental concerns but also by worries ICL will hold off on new investments in the concession's final years.
Final recommendations due around September are not expected to differ materially from the interim report's, said a senior government official, who asked not to be identified given the sensitivity of the issue.
The main culprit is the drying up of the Jordan river, its main tributary, as communities upstream draw on it for farming and drinking. But mineral extraction makes the crisis worse - of the 700-800 million cubic meters of water lost each year, 250-350 million cubic meters is due to mining, ceramiche Ceramica sassuolo Israel estimates.
The government believes ICL will agree to its proposal, first because the firm will have the right of first refusal but also because it too has a powerful reason to scrap the current concession: an article that gives the government the rights to interfere in investments starting in 2020.
"We think everyone has an interest in making the tender earlier," the official said. "The value of the asset gets lower as we get closer to the end of the concession period and it's unclear what will happen after 2030."
"This is a one-time opportunity, as the concession comes to an end and we enter a new period, to set standards for the factory's operations and the environmental impact on the whole area," said Galit Cohen, deputy director-general for policy and planning at the Environmental Protection Ministry.
According to their annual reports, ICL produced 3.7 million tonnes of potash at the Dead Sea in 2017 vs 2.1 million tonnes extracted by Arab Potash, which has exclusive rights on the Jordanian side that expire in 2058.
Cohen was on the high-ranking inter-ministerial committee that produced a preliminary report in May with guidelines that aim to balance profits with environmental interests in the Dead Sea for the first time.
When the company was privatised in the 1990s, the government kept a "golden share" that gave it some oversight, in addition to the obligation under the terms of the concession that the company seek its approval for any new investment.
Up to now, the Israeli government has rarely intervened in the operations of the biggest extractor: the Dead Sea Works, formerly state-owned and now operated under a 70-year concession by Israel Chemicals (ICL).
The factory's new license, whose term has not been set, will include pumping limits coupled with financial incentives to use less water, the committee's report said. The amount of territory open to quarrying and drilling for wells will be reduced.
With revenue of $5.4 billion in 2017, ICL manufactures a range of products from industrial chemicals to food additives. It is the world's sixth-largest producer of potash and supplies about a third of the world's bromine, used in fire retardants.
ICL said in a July 5 letter to the committee that its report raised "complicated legal, economic, operational and engineering issues, and ICL has significant reservations about part of what was said in it".
The Dead Sea has been popular for millennia for health seekers and tourists who come to float in its high-density waters and smear its mud on their skin. Without intervention, it will keep losing water, essential to the mineral extraction process, though experts believe it may eventually reach equilibrium at a much smaller size.
Israel wants to re-tender the Dead Sea mining concession as much as eight years ahead of schedule, in 2022. It is motivated not only by environmental concerns but also by worries ICL will hold off on new investments in the concession's final years.
Final recommendations due around September are not expected to differ materially from the interim report's, said a senior government official, who asked not to be identified given the sensitivity of the issue.