London South East caught up with Emmerson Plc (LSE:EML) CEO Graham Clarke who gave us a detailed operational update on progress with the low-cost high margin Khemisset potash project in Northern Morocco.

A lot has happened since we last spoke to Emmerson, not least the £5.5 million raised from shareholders last month. "It gives us some money in the bank so that we can continue discussions with potential strategic partners from a position of strength, and it also allows us to do some activity on the ground. We've got a programme of site investigation work to do, shallow work like exploring where the processing plant and tailings facility will be, but also we are going to drill down the length of the decline so we derisk that as far as possible" said Graham.

"The information we gather from that will feed into early design work. We want to get on with the design work, front end engineering and detailed design for the decline because that's a critical path into the resource once we commence construction. So it [the money raised] really does allow us to crack on and make substantial progress" he added.

"This year is a big year - we have to tick off a few milestones, but the aim is to be in construction by the end of the year. We need our environmental permission, which we are very confident we will get in the next month or so, having already got the mining licence."