Company Information for Nautilus Minerals Inc
Company stock charts - 6 Month chart
View full financial data | View full financial data |
Company Statement
Nautilus Minerals Inc ("Nautilus") is following the lead by the petroleum industry to tap vast offshore resources and is planning to extract high-grade Seafloor Massive Sulphide ("SMS") deposits of copper, gold, zinc and silver.
Planning is underway for the world's first seafloor copper-gold site in approximately 1,600 metres of water at the Solwara 1 Project in the Bismarck Sea, New Ireland Province of Papua New Guinea.
The Company holds more than 500,000 km2 of tenement licences and exploration applications in the exclusive economic zones and territorial waters of Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga, the Solomon Islands and New Zealand along the western Pacific Ocean's Rim of Fire.
Listed on the Toronto (TSX) and London (AIM) exchanges, Nautilus has among its cornerstone shareholders three of the world's largest resource companies and its alliances and technical partnerships position it as the world leader in deep-water exploration of SMS deposits.
Current Operations
Solwara Project - Gold and Base Metals
Nautilus is focused on the Solwara 1 Project, which is located at 1600 metres water depth in the Bismarck Sea, Papua New Guinea.
Nautilus is developing an integrated production plan to develop a "best practice" ecologically sound and sustainable recovery system for the known resource and expected resource upside. The implementation plan is a two-phased project development.
- Development and demonstration of the offshore recovery system;
- Subsequent optimization through development of a mineral treatment facility
The recovery and ore handling system in phase 1 will comprise the following main elements:
- Seafloor Mining Tool;
- Riser and Lifting System; and
- Production Support Vessel.
- Ore Transfer Barges
- Rabaul Port Ore Stockpile and Handling Facility
The system design draws extensively upon technology used in the subsea oil and gas sector, and combines this with rock cutting and materials handling technologies used in land-based mining operations. To ensure reliability, dual redundant systems are employed on critical subsystems such as the cutting tools.
ENVIRONMENTAL PERMIT
The project reached a significant milestone in September 2009. The Department of Environment and Conservation ("DEC") of Papua New Guinea granted "Approval in Principle" of the Solwara 1 Project Environmental Permit. The "Approval in Principle" signals the completion of rigorous internal and independent external reviews of the proposed development by the DEC. Working with the appropriate government departments and agencies, the next steps for Nautilus are to negotiate the Development Agreement required for the grant of the Mining Lease and prepare the draft project Environmental Management Plan.
METALLURGY
Results from mineralogical and metallurgical investigations of ore concluded that a highly marketable copper concentrate with grades of better than 28% copper can be produced using standard froth flotation techniques with copper recoveries of more than 85%. Additionally the low bond work index, indicates the potential low capital and operating cost for treatment of Solwara 1 ore.
Analysis was completed on 10 composite samples recovered from 1.2 tonnes of Solwara 1 drill core collected during the 2007 drilling campaign at the Company's Solwara 1 Project, located in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea ("PNG"), as documented in the Resource Report completed by Golder Associates Pty Ltd. Testing indicated that over 95% of the copper occurs as the mineral chalcopyrite The chalcopyrite is coarse-grained and can be liberated from the gangue with high recovery to produce a marketable concentrate.
Grinding and flotation tests indicate effective liberation with a likely primary grind size of 80% - 55 micron and regrind size of 80% -25 microns. Comminution data tabulated indicates that the ore has an average Bond Ball Mill Work Index of about 11 kWh/t. The copper concentrates contain significant gold contents and in some cases payable levels of silver. Greater than 90% of the gold reports to sulphides either to a copper or a pyrite concentrate.
Golder Associates SMS NI43-101 compliant resource estimate for Solwara 1.
• Indicated Mineral Resource: 870kt @ 6.8% Cu, 4.8g/t Au, 23g/t Ag, 0.4% Zn
• Inferred Mineral Resource: 1,300kt @ 7.5% Cu, 7.2g/t Au, 37g/t Ag, 0.8% Zn
The resource was open to the west and at a depth where 38% of holes finished in mineralisation. The area drilled in 2007 was constrained by the vessel contract term and the depth limitations of the new Remote Operated Vehicle drill rigs. Currently Nautilus is working with its partners to extend the depth capacity for 2010.
ON-GOING PROJECT DEVELOPMENT WORK
In addition to the engineering work, the Project Development team continues its work on mine planning, materials handling, shipping, metallurgical testing and processing studies.
Geographical Spread

Western Pacific
Board of Directors and Key Management
| Directors | |
| A. Geoffrey Loudon | Chairman and Non-Executive Director |
| Stephen Rogers | President, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director |
| David De Witt | Non-Executive Director |
| Russell Debney | Non-Executive Director |
| Matthew Hammond | Non-Executive Director |
| John O'Reilly | Non-Executive Director |
| Board of Advisors | |
| Robert Goodden | Chairman, Subsea Minerals Ltd. |
| Mike Williamson | President, Williamson & Assoc. |
| Prof. Peter Halbach | Former Chair, Geology Frei University, Berlin |
| Prof. Steve Scott | Norman B. Keevil Professor Emeritus of Ore Genesis, Director of the Scotiabank Marine Geology Research Laboratory and the past Chair of the Department of Geology at the University of Toronto. |
| Ray Binns | Former Chief Research Scientist of Australia 's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) Exploration and Mining Division. |
| Management | |
| Anthony O'Sullivan | Chief Operating Officer |
| Shontel Norgate | Chief Financial Officer |
| Michael Johnston | Vice-President Strategic Development |
| Scott Trebilcock | Vice-President Business Development and Investor Relations |
| Glen Smith | Chief Technology Officer |
| Mel Togolo | PNG Country Manager |
| Paul Tamoepeau | Tonga Country Manager |
Company AddressCorporate Office
|
Additional Address/Key ContactProject Office (Brisbane, Australia) |
CapitalCommon Shares;155,558,884
|
Year EndJune 30 |
Nominated BrokersNumis Securities Limited | Nominated AdvisorsNumis Securities Limited |
Major Shareholders
| Gazmetall, part of Russia's largest iron ore producer | 21.0% |
| Anglo American | 11.1% |
| Teck Resources | 6.8% |
Related News
19/01/10 - Nautilus Minerals Anticipates First Copper Production From Seafloor Massive Sulphides In 201201/09/09 - Last Year’s Decision To Cancel An Order For A Mining Support Vessel Is Now Paying Off For Nautilus Minerals
31/03/09 - Nautilus Is Positioning Itself Shrewdly For The Eventual Upturn In Metal Prices
14/10/08 - Nautilus Minerals and Teck Cominco Discover a Number of High Grade Seafloor Massive Sulphide Systems in PNG and Tongan Waters.
10/01/08 - Nautilus Minerals In At The Deep End
Most Recent Statement
25/02/10 - Nautilus Confirms Recent SMS Discoveries in Papua New Guinea with Assays24/02/10 - Nautilus Minerals' Upcoming Conferences
14/01/10 - Nautilus Minerals Discovers Five High Grade Copper-Zinc Systems
05/01/10 - Solwara 1 Environmental Permit Granted
05/11/09 - Nautilus Maintains Strong Cash Position and Achieves Significant Project Milestone
04/11/09 - Nautilus Discovers Two New High Grade SMS Systems in the Bismarck Sea




