Nautilus Minerals

Nautilus Minerals Inc. is an underwater mineral exploration company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.[1] It is the first company to commercially explore the seafloor for massive sulfide systems, a potential source of high grade copper, gold, zinc and silver.

Nautilus Minerals
TypePublic
TSX: NUS
IndustryMining
Founded1987
Headquarters
Toronto

As of October 2010, Nautilus planned to commence production utilizing a newly constructed mining ship in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea.[2]

As of 2016, the mining ship is being built and scheduled to depart for Papua New Guinea in 2018.[3]

The world's first deep-sea mining robots, built for Nautilus by Soil Machine Dynamics, have been ready to go since 2012.[3]

The company planned to grow its tenement holdings in the exclusive economic zones and territorial waters of Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Zealand as well as other areas outside the Western Pacific. The company collapsed due to a lack of liquidity and ability to secure funding. The company's board secured loans through Deep Sea Mining Finance Ltd. DSMF received assets after the company's bankruptcy. [4]

Solwara 1 Resource

Nautilus's first mining site, Solwara 1, is 30 kilometers off the shore of Papua New Guinea's New Ireland Province.[3]

The company's Solwara 1 Project is located at 1600 metres water depth in the Bismarck Sea, New Ireland Province.[5] It will be the world's first deep-sea mining project.[5][6] The deposit is a high grade copper-gold seafloor massive sulphide (SMS) resource.[5]

In 2007 the exploration team drilled a 43-101 resource on the Solwara 1 Project using newly developed remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) drills. The resulting high grade copper-gold resource was the world's first Seafloor Massive Sulphide ("SMS") resource statement. In 2010/11 further drilling was conducted at Solwara 1 resulting in an increase in the resource base. Results of the updated resource were as follows (November 25, 2011):[7]

Indicated Mineral Resource: 1,030kt @ 7.2% Cu, 5.0 g/t Au, 23 g/t Ag, 0.4% Zn

Inferred Mineral Resource: 1,540kt @ 8.1% Cu, 6.4 g/t Au, 34 g/t Ag, 0.9% Zn

The 2011 Golders Resource update also saw the companies second resource declared for the Solwara 12 project (230K t), some 25 km NE of Solwara 1, in the zone of Exploration License (EL) 1324.[8]

References
  1. "Geoscience BC". November 2010.
  2. Terrestrial Telerobotic Mining Technology: An Enabler for Extraterrestrial Habitation, Mining and Construction, recorded on 31 October 2010, 52.25, Prof. Greg Baiden, Laurentian University, Talk given at the Space Manufacturing 14 conference, 29–31 October 2010, Space Studies Institute
  3. Peter Fairley. "Robot Miners of the Briny Deep: Nautilus Minerals will test machines that will dig for gold in deep-sea vents". IEEE Spectrum. 2016-Jan.
  4. Notice of Application re Leave to Appeal, recorded on 03-10-2019
  5. "Solwara 1 Project – High Grade Copper and Gold". Nautilus Minerals Inc. 2010. Archived from the original on 12 August 2010. Retrieved 14 September 2010.
  6. Hill, Matthew (2010-09-07). "Nautilus says could start undersea mining in 2013". Mining Weekly. Retrieved 14 September 2010.
  7. Lipton, Ian (2008-02-01). "Mineral Resource Estimate, Solwara 1 Project, Bismarck Sea, Papua New Guinea for Nautilus Minerals Inc" (PDF). Nautilus Minerals. Golder Associates. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-07-05.
  8. Earle, Sylvia (21 July 2016). "Deep Sea Mining: An Invisible Land Grab". National Geographic. National Geographic. Retrieved 21 April 2019.


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