Nautilus Minerals plans to expand

[seabedmining]

NAUTILUS Minerals has plans to expand its activities into the Bismarck Sea and the Pacific, PNG country manager Mel Togolo says.

He said there was potential for expansion in the Bismarck especially with a current deposit located close to the Solwara 1 site, found off the west coast of New Ireland.

Togolo said Solwara 1 was a small project given its short life span and with the recommencing of exploration, Nautilus was looking towards other potential sites.

“It (Solwara 1) is not like Lihir, in terms of volume it produces or Porgera, it is a small project,” he

said.

“And it has a very short time frame; currently we think it’s only three years.

“That’s why we talk about recommencing our exploration so that after three years we can go and mine in other sites.

“We have exploration plans for the Bismarck seas.

“We have a small deposit next door to Solwara 1, and after Solwara 1 we will go into that area.” Togolo said Nautilus had started exploration in the some Pacific island countries to maximise shareholder value.

“We have recommenced exploration in the region.

“We have a pipeline of projects to feed it with the production system that will be available in the waters of PNG.

“We now have a team in Solomon Islands, we’ve got more exploration work in that country and we’ve got potential in Tonga as well.”

According to the company, following resolution of a commercial dispute with the Government, Nautilus had recommenced its exploration initiatives, focusing in the south west Pacific for this year.

[maui4marko]

“We have a small deposit next door to Solwara 1, and after Solwara 1 we will go into that area.”

Sol 5 and Sol 9 are both in Mining Lease 154, so are one/both of these the "small deposit next door"?  Or is he referring to Sol 12, which was included in the initial resource report along with Sol 1.  Since Sol 12 is not included in the existing mine lease, PNG would need to award a second ML from Exploration Lease 1374.

Might be a good question for the AGM, especially since Nautilus has confirmed they have an exploration plan in place.  Perhaps they can share with us their (in-country PNG) mining strategy, since the SMS deposits have a relatively short lifespan and will require a different project pipeline approach than terrestrial mining where the mine life is typically measured in decades, not years.

See page 24 of the Golder Resource Report http://www.nautilusminerals.com/i/pdf/SL...Report.pdf