News

October 14, 2008

Nautilus Minerals and Teck Cominco Discover a Number of High Grade Seafloor Massive Sulphide Systems in PNG and Tongan Waters.

Charles Wyatt

When all around is doom and gloom it is as well for a mining company yet to generate cash flow to have a healthy bank balance and some powerful shareholders who know exactly why they invested in the company and are capable of contributing more funds if necessary. In the case of Nautilus Minerals it had US$299 million in cash and cash equivalents held on deposit with major banks at the end of June. Its biggest shareholders are Teck Cominco with 7.2 per cent and Anglo American with 5.6 per cent, but at the forefront is a Russian company called Epion with 22.4 per cent. Epion is controlled by the founder of Metalloinvest one of the largest and fastest growing mining and metallurgical holdings in Russia. The reason why all three are involved is simply because Nautilus is the first company to explore the ocean floor for gold and copper seafloor massive sulphide deposits and it expects to bring its Solwara1 project into production in 2010.

In the past week the Government of Papua New Guinea has registered the receipt of Nautilus' mining lease application  for it. A development proposal which details the planned development of the project was lodged simultaneously with the application and Stephen Rogers, the chief executive described this event as “a key milestone for the project and a historic event in the infancy of the seafloor mining industry. This formally commences the permitting process and we look forward to working...