Nautilus Minerals Share Discussion Threads

[andrbea] 08/8/2011 09:30

At Solwara-1 there is an indicated 870,000 tonnes grading 6.8% copper, 4.8 grams/tonne gold, 23 g/t silver and 0.4% zinc, and an inferred 1.3 million tonnes @ 7.5% Cu, 7.2 g/t Au, 37 g/t Ag and 0.8% Zn – all using a 4% cut-off grade.

[andrbea] 03/8/2011 10:03

nus looks a good play, medium to long-term:

"New copper projects are becoming more remote, are becoming deeper and are becoming metallurgically more challenging," O'Sullivan said. "I don't think there's a view that we're running out of copper or there's a scarcity but I think there's a view that it's becoming increasingly difficult to develop on land."

The current average grade of copper deposits is 0.6 percent, according forecaster Wood MacKenzie Ltd., dropping from about 1 percent in 1990, compared with a 6.5 percent copper grade for Nautilus' $407 million Solwara project, located at a depth of 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) in the Bismarck Sea in Papua New Guinea.

[andrbea] 29/7/2011 08:51

and:

PROCESSING, OFFTAKE AGREEMENTS

Nautilus plans to toll-treat its production, and will be looking to conclude processing agreements by the end of this year, he said earlier in a presentation at the annual general meeting.

"And we would also expect to be able to achieve an offtake agreement on at least a small percentage of our planned production target, maybe around 25% or 30%."

The company expects Solwara 1 will produce about 80 000 t of copper and between 150 000 oz/y and 200 000 oz/y of gold.

"And there's a long list of suitors, with a big appetite for that metal," Rogers said.

Nautilus was awarded the first deep-sea mining lease by the government of Papua New Guinea earlier this year, and said in April it had signed a strategic partnership agreement with Germany's Harren & Partner, to provide an offshore mining vessel.

Harren will arrange bank debt and contribute equity and loans totalling €91-million, and Nautilus must come up with €16-million as its equity contribution.

The company is also nearing completion on a valuation agreement with the government of Papua New Guinea, which said in March it would exercise an option to buy 30% of the Solwara 1 project. The government will pay its share of project development costs, Nautilus said at the time.

The firm plans to publish an updated resource estimate in September or October, Rogers said.

[wstirrup] 27/7/2011 13:10

It's just occurred to me... If the Russians, and the Chinese dig large holes in the ocean floor... Will this make it deeper, and thus lower rising sea-levels... And where will they put the spoil... they could build ramparts around low lying islands and atolls... ;¬))

A cure for climate change? :¬))

W.

[andrbea] 25/7/2011 14:25

Now, many experts say the U.S. risks falling behind potential commercial and military competitors as rising commodity prices make undersea mining more profitable, and China and Russia apply for rights to explore newly discovered deep-sea deposits thought to hold larger quantities of silver, gold, copper, zinc and lead in particular.

The race has commercial, scientific and military implications comparable to space exploration, in which China is also now a world power as one of only three countries-alongside the U.S. and Russia-that are independently capable of manned space flight.

Although Chinese officials say the Jiaolong is for civilian purposes only, foreign military experts say such a craft could be used to intercept or sever undersea communications cables, to retrieve foreign weaponry on the ocean floor, or to repair or rescue naval submarines.

Its primary purpose, however, is to help explore potentially huge but hitherto inaccessible undersea reserves of the metals and other natural resources that China needs to keep its economy growing, said Chinese and foreign experts.

[andrbea] 25/7/2011 13:53

and

China and Russia can begin searching for minerals on the deep Pacific Ocean seabed after the International Seabed Authority, based in Kingston, Jamaica, this week approved applications from Nauru, a Pacific island nation, and Tonga as well as the exploration requests from China and Russia, Bloomberg reported.


While mining seabed deposits so far hasn't proved economical, Canada's Nautilus Minerals is developing technology to mine gold- and copper-rich ore on the seabed. Metalloinvest owns a 21 percent stake in Nautilus. Prices of copper and gold are trading close to records as demand from China grows.


The four applicants want to explore the Clarion-Clipperton Fractured Zone in the eastern central Pacific, which lies mostly at a depth of between four and six kilometers, the seabed authority said on its web site in a July 19 statement.



Read more:
The Moscow Times

[wstirrup] 25/7/2011 00:32

Recent sales pitch for NUS in an e-mail doing the rounds from a couple of U.S. based research houses, advising their U.S. clients to buy on the TSX.

This should mean an uplift in the following few weeks as the news filters through.

Not a holder YET, but had them on my watch list for many months.

I hear there may be a major pull-back in the markets due to problems in China -imminent. (my guess would be the usual - late October)

So, I'm just watching and waiting for the time being. Maybe able to pick up a few a little cheaper following that. No sense in putting more in than necessary. BUT by all accounts a superb Medium term buy. BUT as usual, timing is everything.

W.

[excellance] 20/7/2011 15:43

2 ships planned?

the guy who founded NUS also discovered the lihir 41m oz gold mine... thats a good sign!

[excellance] 20/7/2011 15:32

i have to say that NUS is possibly the most exciting mining prospect in years... not sure of the technology, but it looks logical enough.

not sure of the implications of the recent failed capital raising either, but i guess a farm in must be an option...

i wonder what kind of tonnage one of these ships can get through in a year, and how many ships they intend to use?

[jonno1] 19/7/2011 10:06

"The Great Treasure of the Bismarck Sea"

[andrbea] 18/7/2011 15:48

Now that the pioneer deep sea minerals miner Nautilus Minerals is preparing to start mining its Solwara 1 project in Papua New Guinea's Bismarck Sea, there is widespread interest in the region in the development of this potential new industry.

Cook Islands' new seabed mining law is being seen as an example that other non-mining Pacific countries that are sitting on potential mineable resources could follow because the interest in this business is beginning to grow.

By December last year, Nautilus had publicly announced that it held more than 154,000 square kilometres of granted tenements and a further 373,000 square kilometres under application in the territorial waters and Exclusive Economic Zones of Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu and New Zealand

It has two other subsidiaries-Nauru Ocean Resources Incorporated and Tonga Offshore Mining Ltd-being sponsored by Nauru and Tonga to explore international waters while prospecting applications have also been put forward by Australian owned Bluewater Metals, the Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute (KORDI) and other companies to Cook Islands, Solomon Islands, PNG, Fiji, Kiribati, Tonga and Vanuatu.

The trouble with these countries is that they either have no legislation in place to facilitate the interest or if they do have mining laws, seabed mining is not catered for.

This is where SOPAC, under its EU-funded Deep Sea Minerals Project (DSMP), has begun to assist member countries and the inaugural meeting last month in Fiji was part of that initiative.

"PNG, being the mining capital of the region with an on-land Mining Act, is well advanced in terms of the application of that Act to the outer edges of their territorial sea, but having said that, they also have to cater for the seabed minerals resources within their EEZ and extended continental shelf," said SOPAC's DSMP team leader Akuila Tawake.

"It's still work in progress for them and that's why they have a review process going on at the moment and the information that I got from them is that they are going to complete the review process before the end of this year.

"On the other hand, the Cook Islands with the assistance of the Commonwealth Secretariat has developed similar national legislative instruments like the Seabed Minerals Policy as well as their legislation. Fiji has a draft policy.

"These three countries have something. But most Pacific countries don't have anything in terms of national legislative frameworks. So that's where this project comes in, to assist them in the development of their regulatory framework to ensure they have the platform for good governance and the administration of their seabed minerals," Tawake added.

PNG, which hosts the world's first commercial seabed minerals mine, said it is currently reviewing its Mining (Safety) Act 1997 and its Minerals Policy to account for seabed mining, an exercise that Pacific Islands countries with an existing minerals mining industry may have to borrow from soon.

"We are not creating a separate offshore mining act, our main legislation is the Mining Act 1992, it is sufficient and qualifies for offshore mining. We will just need to strengthen certain things like continental shelf issues and the outer limits of the water, things that will reflect offshore mining," said Shadrach Himata, Deputy Secretary at PNG's Department of Minerals Policy and Geohazards.

"What we are reviewing is our Mining (Safety) Act 1977 and our Minerals Policy and we hope to complete that in the next few months, before the end of the year."

As the mining powerhouse of the Pacific, PNG has had the luxury of experience in the business, including its share of landowner issues, so even though seabed mining is generally considered not to involve any landowning interest as it is happening in waters that belong to the state, there are plans to compensate coastal dwellers who normally fish in locations that would be mined.

"The mineral resources are owned by the state but we recognise the traditional ownership and the rights of landowners," said Himata.

"We know they own the land and because of that recognition, we give them back the benefits of royalties. That's for onshore. For offshore, we don't have any landowners but we are recognising the local level government, the provincial government and the benefits go back to the people through the government system.

"So in the case of Solwara 1, the benefit goes back to the coastal people within the vicinity of the project area, those who fish there, and they are the people from East New Britain and from New Ireland. So part of the review process is a social mapping guideline that we will be used for offshore mining operations and we will use those guidelines to identify the people who normally fish in those areas.

"In terms of benefits distribution, we use that criteria to apportion whatever comes in and that will be distributed though the local governments," Himata added.

For Cook Islands, similar consultations with traditional owners of islands near the mining sites is being promised.

"I am sure they are going to be very interested and the government of Cook Islands is definitely going to make sure that the benefits go to them and to the Cook Islands people for generations to come."

Fiji is another country that has developed what it calls its "Offshore Mining Policy", which will guide the development of its seabed minerals sector.

Like PNG, Fiji has an abundance of what's known as Seafloor Massive Sulphide deposits-potential sources of copper, gold, silver, zinc and lead.

It is currently processing applications from Nautilus and KORDI for exploration licenses in its EEZ.

[andrbea] 18/7/2011 15:26

The demand, the high prices, the typical high-grade nature of the deposits found in the deep, the wonders of new technologies and the recognised depletion of land-based minerals sources from which these metals are derived are all combining to make seabed mining economically feasible.
And the interest in these small Pacific countries, most with ocean spaces bigger than their total landmass, is now very real.
Take Cook Islands for example. It may be a group of 15 small islands with a total landmass of around 240 square kilometres and a population of roughly 14,000 people at last census count. But the waters of its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is said to hold untold riches that have the potential to push this tiny nation from pearl and tourism-dependent to one associated with mining income, possibly as a significant supplier of cobalt.
Pristine as it may be, Cook Islands' EEZ is host to "approximately 7.5 billion dry tonnes of cobalt rich manganese nodules containing 32.5 million tonnes of cobalt, 24.5 million tonnes of nickel and 14 million tonnes of copper (cut-off grade of >5kg/cubic metre) in an area of 652 223 sq kilometres," according to a feasibility study done for the Cook Islands in 1993. The study, according to Ben Ponia, Chair of the Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Taskforce, was produced by the Pacific Islands Development Program of the East West Centre and was prepared by Allen Clark and his colleagues in cooperation with the Secretariat of the Pacific Community's Applied Geoscience and Technology Division (SOPAC) and Metal Mining Agency of Japan.
This study found there to be enough cobalt in Cook Islands waters to supply the then global demand for the next 520 years.
According to information in the Madang Guidelines, a publication that resulted from a regional Mineral Policy workshop in Madang, Papua New Guinea, in 1999, the feasibility study had proposed a mining scenario with an output of about 3000 tonnes of cobalt per year, the equivalent of around 10 percent of the world's cobalt consumption that would be mined from a small area north of Aitutaki.
"The proposed mining area was chosen for its high nodule abundance, high cobalt content of the nodules and the presence of a relatively flat terrain that would facilitate the harvesting of the nodules. The nodules would be gathered by dredging, using small beam trawlers especially modified for the recovery of nodules.
"Once brought to the surface, the nodules would be loaded onto large transport vessels for shipment to a processing plant (assumed to be in New Zealand) where the nodules would be off-loaded, stockpiled and later reclaimed for smelting and refining at the plant."
Also in the 1990s, sea floor exploration done in the Cooks by US engineering firm Bechtel had delivered promising results, enough for it to form the view that commercial mining of the nodules was economically, technically and environmentally feasible, where returns on investment were generous at over 20 percent, pegged at a cobalt price of US$25 a pound and a mining project lifetime of 26 years.

[pip_uk] 18/7/2011 15:22

On the move nicely, am in for a few.
Will be very interesting watching developments as they do seem to mean business.

[andrbea] 18/7/2011 08:59

nus 1.7%
applications to deepsea mine at Fiji & Cook Islands

(article from 2 hours ago, see last para)

Now that the pioneer deep sea minerals miner Nautilus Minerals is preparing to start mining its Solwara 1 project in Papua New Guinea's Bismarck Sea, there is widespread interest in the region in the development of this potential new industry.
Cook Islands' new seabed mining law is being seen as an example that other non-mining Pacific countries that are sitting on potential mineable resources could follow because the interest in this business is beginning to grow.
By December last year, Nautilus had publicly announced that it held more than 154,000 square kilometres of granted tenements and a further 373,000 square kilometres under application in the territorial waters and Exclusive Economic Zones of Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu and New Zealand
It has two other subsidiaries-Nauru Ocean Resources Incorporated and Tonga Offshore Mining Ltd-being sponsored by Nauru and Tonga to explore international waters while prospecting applications have also been put forward by Australian owned Bluewater Metals, the Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute (KORDI) and other companies to Cook Islands, Solomon Islands, PNG, Fiji, Kiribati, Tonga and Vanuatu.
The trouble with these countries is that they either have no legislation in place to facilitate the interest or if they do have mining laws, seabed mining is not catered for.
This is where SOPAC, under its EU-funded Deep Sea Minerals Project (DSMP), has begun to assist member countries and the inaugural meeting last month in Fiji was part of that initiative.
"PNG, being the mining capital of the region with an on-land Mining Act, is well advanced in terms of the application of that Act to the outer edges of their territorial sea, but having said that, they also have to cater for the seabed minerals resources within their EEZ and extended continental shelf," said SOPAC's DSMP team leader Akuila Tawake.
"It's still work in progress for them and that's why they have a review process going on at the moment and the information that I got from them is that they are going to complete the review process before the end of this year.
"On the other hand, the Cook Islands with the assistance of the Commonwealth Secretariat has developed similar national legislative instruments like the Seabed Minerals Policy as well as their legislation. Fiji has a draft policy.
"These three countries have something. But most Pacific countries don't have anything in terms of national legislative frameworks. So that's where this project comes in, to assist them in the development of their regulatory framework to ensure they have the platform for good governance and the administration of their seabed minerals," Tawake added.
PNG, which hosts the world's first commercial seabed minerals mine, said it is currently reviewing its Mining (Safety) Act 1997 and its Minerals Policy to account for seabed mining, an exercise that Pacific Islands countries with an existing minerals mining industry may have to borrow from soon.
"We are not creating a separate offshore mining act, our main legislation is the Mining Act 1992, it is sufficient and qualifies for offshore mining. We will just need to strengthen certain things like continental shelf issues and the outer limits of the water, things that will reflect offshore mining," said Shadrach Himata, Deputy Secretary at PNG's Department of Minerals Policy and Geohazards.
"What we are reviewing is our Mining (Safety) Act 1977 and our Minerals Policy and we hope to complete that in the next few months, before the end of the year."
As the mining powerhouse of the Pacific, PNG has had the luxury of experience in the business, including its share of landowner issues, so even though seabed mining is generally considered not to involve any landowning interest as it is happening in waters that belong to the state, there are plans to compensate coastal dwellers who normally fish in locations that would be mined.
"The mineral resources are owned by the state but we recognise the traditional ownership and the rights of landowners," said Himata.
"We know they own the land and because of that recognition, we give them back the benefits of royalties. That's for onshore. For offshore, we don't have any landowners but we are recognising the local level government, the provincial government and the benefits go back to the people through the government system.
"So in the case of Solwara 1, the benefit goes back to the coastal people within the vicinity of the project area, those who fish there, and they are the people from East New Britain and from New Ireland. So part of the review process is a social mapping guideline that we will be used for offshore mining operations and we will use those guidelines to identify the people who normally fish in those areas.
"In terms of benefits distribution, we use that criteria to apportion whatever comes in and that will be distributed though the local governments," Himata added.
For Cook Islands, similar consultations with traditional owners of islands near the mining sites is being promised.
"I am sure they are going to be very interested and the government of Cook Islands is definitely going to make sure that the benefits go to them and to the Cook Islands people for generations to come."
Fiji is another country that has developed what it calls its "Offshore Mining Policy", which will guide the development of its seabed minerals sector.
Like PNG, Fiji has an abundance of what's known as Seafloor Massive Sulphide deposits-potential sources of copper, gold, silver, zinc and lead.
It is currently processing applications from Nautilus and KORDI for exploration licenses in its EEZ.

[andrbea] 06/7/2011 14:54

also:
University of Tokyo Associate Professor Yasuhiro Kato said researchers had found deposits in ocean-floor mud at depths of 3500 metres to 6000m in central and southeastern areas of the Pacific Ocean. They believe there is about 100 billion tonnes of rare earth minerals in the seabed mud.

[andrbea] 06/7/2011 14:53

from 656:

Prof Kato said one square kilometre of deposits from the mud would provide one-fifth of the current global annual consumption.

[zangdook] 04/7/2011 15:27

Japan finds rare earths in Pacific seabed

mentions NUS

[zangdook] 11/6/2011 03:10

As I read it they were saying "you've walked the price down trying to take advantage and get in cheap, we're not going to fall for it".

Excellent pro-shareholder spirit on the part of the BoD.

[excellance] 11/6/2011 01:43

the "poor market conditions" statement is similar to that of EO. a while back and is cause for a little concern, clearly investors across the board are being ultra cautious at the moment and demand too much