25 May 2012

Nautilus dives for growth

01/04/2008 Robert Tyerman

Seafloor mining hopeful Nautilus Minerals is embarking on a big drive to prove and develop high-grade mineral deposits at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, with the backing of major mining industry shareholders Anglo American, Teck Cominco and Barrick Gold.
Based in Vancouver, Nautilus, which floated last year on AIM, has a budget of £10 million to explore epithermal deposits of gold, copper and zinc on the seabed off Papua New Guinea, where previous surface sampling returned grades of 15.5 grammes of gold per tonne of ore, 138 grammes a tonne of silver, 9.6 per cent copper and 54.1 per cent zinc.

The company’s declared goal is to create the world’s first seafloor copper and gold mine in 1,500 metres of water at the Solwara 1 project in the Bismarck Sea off Papua New Guinea. Altogether Nautilus holds more than 370,000 sq km of tenement licences and applications in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Fiji, the Solomon Islands and New Zealand.

Chief executive officer David Heydon argues the epithermal mineral ‘ring of fire’ extends to all these areas and suggests the company next plans to expand its exploration drive to the waters off Tonga. He compares the material to poly-metallic deposits in northern Canada and argues seafloor material is of particularly high quality and is ‘very saleable’.
The stockmarket has become sceptical and Nautilus shares, floated last year at 185p, have fallen from a 279.5p peak to 112.5p, valuing the company at £164 million. Some convincing exploration success might change attitudes.

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Sector: Mining

Companies: Nautilus Minerals

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