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Nautilus Minerals (NUS.V)

99 Posts
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  1. [verwijderd] 5 oktober 2006 18:06
    Nautilus One Step Closer to Undersea Mining

    By Karl Heilman
    04 Oct 2006 at 04:12 PM EDT

    St. LOUIS (ResourceInvestor.com) -- Nautilus Minerals [TSXv:NUS], the first company to commercially begin exploring the bottom of the ocean for gold and copper deposits, today announced a piece of news that is getting the company one step closer to its aquatic goals.

    Nautilus has signed a deal with Belgian dredging company, Jan De Nul, for the construction of a specialized deep sea mining ship to be used for Nautilus’s Solwara Project in Papa New Guinea.

    “Jan De Nul will join Nautilus in its plans to be the first to mine the deep oceans of the world for copper, gold and zinc,” Nautilus CEO David Heydon said in a press release. “Such a move represents the dawn of a new era in mining: The creation of a whole new industry.”

    The 191-metre ship, the “Jules Verne,” is slated to be complete in 2009 for the start of Nautilus’s mining operations (subject to Papa New Guinea approval). It will be capable of deploying mining equipment that can reach the 1,700-metre seafloor of the Solwara site.

    The Jules Verne, which is already under construction, will come at a cost of nearly $400 million. However, Nautilus will not own the ship. Jan De Nul will essentially pay for, build, own and operate the ship in the transaction, receiving $75 per tonne of ore mined in exchange for picking up the $400-million tab.

    Nautilus will pay $120 million for the necessary mining equipment on the ship: two sub sea miners, power umbilical, pumps, a 1,800-metre riser pipe and other necessary equipment.

    If after the feasibility study, the deposit is deemed unfeasible, the ship is returned to the dredging company, whereas Nautilus only spent $120 million instead of $400 million.

    In addition, Nautilus will spend $160 million for a 2 million tonne per day concentrator, associated port facility and other directly related infrastructure, with an operating cost of $13.70/tonne ore treated.

    Mining ... Under the Sea

    So exactly how does one go about mining for minerals under the sea? Deep water gas and oil companies, which sceptics once believed would never take off, faced similar questions during the onslaught of their operations.

    “We have seen how the offshore oil and gas industry has evolved since its early days - to the point where society is now reliant on offshore oil/gas to meet its needs,” said Heydon. “Likewise, seafloor resources may one day be critical for society to meet its future needs for copper and zinc.”

    Heydon explained to Resource Investor how the process will work from the Jules Verne:

    The material will be disaggregated with a seabed crawler that has a cutter section and dredge head. This has a teeth cutter electric power umbilical cable that is controlled via remote from the ship.
    The cut material is then sucked in like a dredge and pumped through a 300mm wide pipe. Five pumps spread along the pipe at different depths pump the material 1,700 metres to the ship above.
    The material is then collected on the ship in a cargo hold and then transferred to a barge by very large excavators fixed on the ship.
    Heydon said the company expects a mining rate of 6,000 tonnes per day for 1.8 million tonnes per year.

    “Jan De Nul are responsible to mine and barge the material to a wharf we would build, (Jan De Nul will supply the barges). We propose to build a concentrator plant to produce a copper and zinc concentrate, with a likely buyer being an Asian smelter,” Heydon told RI, adding that Nautilus proposes to begin discussions with smelters next year.

    Barrick’s Stake

    Nautilus has been quite busy over the previous months. On August 23, the company issued a special warrant worth $13,679,846.18 to mining mogul Barrick [NYSE:ABX; TSX:ABX]. On September 11, the warrant became convertible to 4,783,163 common shares at a rate of $2.86 per share, or the equivalent of a 9.59% stake in Nautilus.

    Heydon said in a company press release: “Since agreeing to these terms with Barrick, and taking control of the project, Nautilus has moved the Solwara 1 deposit to pre development status. We have initiated engineering studies of both the offshore mining and land based mineral processing elements of the project and we are now looking at financing options for the development of Solwara 1 whilst scoping long lead time items such as the mining vessel.”

    Sampling Strength

    Nautilus announced on September 26 additional sampling grades from the Solwara projects.

    From the Solwara 1 project, 7 surface samples were taken, returning average grades of 13.1g/t Au, and 16% Cu compared to previous Solwara sampling of 88 surface samples averaging 15.5g/t Au, 10.8% Cu.

    Additionally, 28 samples from the Solwara 4 project were collected, averaging 13.5 g/t Au, 23.2% zinc, 11.3% Cu and 263g/t Ag.

    On September 5, 68 surface samples were taken from Solwara 2 and 3 averaging 10.3g/t Au, 22.1% Zn and 418g/t Ag.

    Heydon told RI that Nautilus has “17,500 square kilometres of mineral claims covering what you call on land a ‘mining camp.’” He added that the project had enormous potential because the company could place claims over “the whole mineral belt.”

    Environmental Concerns

    Any new project is sure to usher in a number of environmental concerns; however, the company is confident that its process has a number of upsides when compared to land-mining.

    Heydon told RI, “Our environmental consultants see this as no different to permitting any other mine. We have a timeline in accordance with experience of permitting mines in Papa New Guinea and all points to achieving permitting in that timeline. We have not had any environmental groups show concern.”

    Heydon added that Nautilus’ project will in fact cause much less impact than many land mines.

    “We will have much less greenhouse emissions per tonne of copper. We don't have the waste rock of a porphyry copper mine where at times there is a 3:1 stripping rate, for example, 3 trucks cart waste while 1 truck carts 99% waste with 1% copper,” he said.

    Geologist Opinion

    Dr. Steven Scott, a geologist at the University of Toronto, and an expert and pioneer in deep sea mineral deposits, is reputed as the first geologist to explore “black smokers,” essentially ore bodies that are sulpher rich and, of course, produced under the sea.

    According to this article, black smokers are created when “seawater seeps into the porous sea bottom, is heated and re-emerges through vents carrying dissolved minerals. When the hot water hits the cold sea floor water, the minerals precipitate, creating chimney-like towers called black smokers. Over time, these towers collapse and accumulate to form ore deposits, some of which are rich in gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc.”

    In briefly speaking with Resource Investor, he touted the endless possibilities for miners willing to seek resources under the sea.

    Conclusion

    Possibly the best way to conclude the implications of Nautilus’s progress and innovation is through Dr. Scott, who recently told RI that Nautilus’s potential is enormous, saying the company had “first move advantage…like being the first mining company in Canada.”

    Nautilus shares were trading down 15 cents or at C$1.90 on the TSX Venture exchange in late afternoon trading.

    www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?r...
  2. [verwijderd] 10 oktober 2006 08:46
    Nautilus - one small step for mining, a giant leap for...
    By: Rhona O’Connell
    Posted: '06-OCT-06 14:00' GMT © Mineweb 1997-2006

    LONDON (Mineweb.com) --A few years ago, Mr. Anthony O’Sullivan, then the executive responsible for BHP Billiton’s world-wide exploration programme, interrupted a corporate presentation to say that over 80% of the world’s land Volcanic Massive Sulphide (VMS) deposits were uneconomic. They are too small, many of them amounting to only perhaps 20 million tonnes and that 200 million tonnes would be more like it.

    In response, Mr. David Heydon, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Nautilus Minerals, and who was giving the presentation, asked if Mr. O’Sullivan would be interested in a project that effectively added together a number of small deposits, coming-out at about 200 million tonnes.

    Mr. O’Sullivan listened on. Today he is the Chief Operating Officer of Nautilus Minerals, which in 2009 will bring on stream a sea-floor volcanic massive sulphide deposit offshore Papua New Guinea. The company is also applying for (but has yet to be granted) a package of 45,000 square kilometres offshore Tonga in the North Fiji Basin, which is running at approximately 8.3% copper, 8.9% zinc with 3.4 grammes/tonne gold.

    In his presentation at the Mining Journal 20:20 Copper Day in London, Mr. Heydon described how, 40 years ago, some of the engineers proposing offshore oil and gas exploration and production were more or less consigned to the lunatic asylum. Now, offshore oil and gas production accounts for 30% of the world’s energy needs.

    Nautilus Minerals is listed on the Toronto Ventures Exchange (ticker symbol NUS, market capitalisation C$95 million or US$85 million) and is considering listing on AIM late this year or early 2007. Nautilus is the first company commercially to explore the ocean floor for gold and copper seafloor massive sulphide deposits. The potential here is obvious. Seventy per cent of the planet's surface is covered in water, and while a good majority of it is obviously far too deep in which to operate, the scope for operation at depths of, say up to 2,000 metres, is vast and the economics may make excellent sense.

    The company’s first project is “Solwara”, offshore Papua New Guinea. Nautilus has seven tenements totalling some 15,000 square kilometres and the Suzette field is the focus of the current drilling programme, some 50 kilometres north of Rabaul, which is the main port of East New Britain Province. A number of governments have already been working on the property (for example the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the United States) and some US$35 million have already been spent. The first area for development is the “Solwara 1”. This is a surface development and numerous samples to date have averaged 15.8 grammes/tonne gold, 190 g/t silver and 10.8% copper. At Solwara 4, which is populated with chimneys above the surface mounds, over one hundred samples have been taken with average grades of 6.0% copper and 25.5% zinc. Drilling to date has a 100% hit rate and the company also has the benefit of a useful database from previous government drilling and good research and development support form joint venture partners.

    These have included Placer Dome, which had struck a US$12.2 million farm-in along with US$2.4 million of engineering purposes. Following Barrick’s take-over of Placer, this has been converted such that Barrick now holds 9.6% of Nautilus and Nautilus has autonomy over the project.

    Solwara 1 has already been drilled by Placer which examined the deposits with geophysics, rock cutting and engineering as well as establishing the environmental baseline. The company has taken 88 samples that averaged 15.5 g/t gold and 10.8% copper. This deposit is also populated with chimneys, some of which are 20 metres high, while the average height is ten metres. These are particularly high grade and Nautilus will mine these first before exploiting the mounds beneath.

    The deposits are effectively “on-surface”; there is no mud to get through and very little gangue, if any although there is a trace of basalt. Effectively, therefore, the company will be operating an underwater open pit with zero stripping ratio and some of the material pulled will be direct shipping ore. The ore is highly friable, which makes grading difficult but treatment very easy – the drill core is currently running at 9.1 g/t gold and 13.1% copper, at 1,600 – 1,700 metres below the water surface.

    Nautilus has been trial mining using a remote operated vehicle (ROV) that has been used in oil and gas operations, using dredging techniques. The Jan de Nul (JDN) company, which is the second largest international dredging company in the world, and which builds the biggest dredges, is building a 191 metre vessel, the “Jules Verne” for the operation. JDN will carry the capital cost, which is estimated at US$100 million and then will carry out contract mining at a cost of $75/tonne (which, at 10% copper and 85% recovery, equates to roughly 40 cents/lb basic cost), and deliver to port. Nautilus is to provide the undersea equipment and estimated capital costs of US$120 million.

    The economics of the operation are impressive. As well as the marine operations there is to be a land-based concentrator at a capital cost of US$150 million and operating costs of $13.60/t using froth flotation. The concentrate will be coarse grain and lends itself to 85% recovery at 120 microns.

    Only one diamond rig is necessary for the operation although Nautilus will keep two machines in order to sustain continuous operation. Once the material has been taken off the sea floor it will be pumped, dewatered, lifted to a barge and then taken direct to a smelter on the land-based concentrator

    Mr. Hayden put up an approximate comparison between a 200,000 tpa copper operation from the PNG operation with Antamina in the Andes, thus;

    Copper grades: Seafloor - 10%, Land open cut – 1%.
    Ore production per year: Sea – 2 million tonnes, Land – 20 million tonnes.
    Overburden: Sea: zero, Land - 3:1.
    Total material moved per year: Sea – 2 million tonnes, Land – 80 million tonnes.

    Add to this the flexibility of movement. Once a deposit has been exploited, the machine can withdraw the pipe, move on, and sink it again elsewhere. A land shaft, once sunk, stays there.

    Nautilus is very enthusiastic about its prospects and is receiving strong support from the New Guinea government. The company’s Chairman is Geoff Loudon, who was the Chairman of Niugini Mining and is still on the board of Lihir, which is nearby. Director David de Witt is a founder and the Chairman of Pathway Capital Ltd., a private venture capital company and served as a director and corporate secretary of Arequipa Resources Ltd. Mr. De Witt is currently a director of Bear Creek Mining Corp. and founder of Peru Copper Ltd. Mr. Heydon is a Foundation Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, a Director of the International Marine Minerals Society, a co-sponsor of the Underwater Mining Institute, a Member of the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers and a Member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. Mr. Heydon is also a member of the Engineering Committee on Oceanic Resources' (ECOR) Specialist Panel on deepwater mining. Mr. Anthony O’Sullivan, we already know about.

    www.mineweb.net/junior_mining/253710.htm
  3. [verwijderd] 5 december 2006 17:36
    Nautilus Minerals halts trading on "big news"
    By Nathan Becker
    04 Dec 2006 at 06:14 PM

    Nautilus halted trading on the TSXv at 10:46 a.m. EST Friday, citing pending news as the reason for the shutdown.

    A market source told RI today that a local major might be buying a sizable stake in the company. The source said Nautilus should announce the "big news" Wednesday.

    Barrick Gold Corp. owns about a 9.9% stake in Nautilus and Anglo American owns about 16.7%. For more information on Nautilus expansion, please see previous RI coverage here and here.

    Stay tuned for more RI coverage.

    www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?r...
  4. -PR- 5 december 2006 19:05
    Ben zeer benieuwd wat er staat te gebeuren.
    Volg het aandeel al een hele tijd, maar ben nooit ingestapt. Op dit moment heb ik spijt dat ik niet onder de 2,- ben ingestapt in oktober. En na morgen zal ik waarschijnlijk twee keer zoveel spijt hebben.
    Typisch zo'n geval van 'ik stond erbij en keek ernaar'.

    -PR-
  5. [verwijderd] 5 december 2006 19:12
    Ik zit er dik in. Het is één van mijn grotere posities. Gemiddeld gekocht voor zo´n CAD 2.40

    Ik zie het als een pure LT/belegging. Ik hoop dat het mijnen op zee ooit goed mogelijk wordt, dan is NUS spekkoper. Er zijn nauwelijks spelers actief in dit segment.

    Ongeacht wat er voor nieuws morgen naar buiten komt...ik blijf zitten.

    gr postzak
  6. [verwijderd] 6 december 2006 19:05
    Teck said set to put millions into Nautilus
    ANDY HOFFMAN
    00:00 EST Wednesday, Dec 06, 2006

    Teck Cominco Ltd. is set to invest as much as $50-million in Nautilus Minerals Inc., a company that explores for gold and copper deep beneath the ocean floor, according to a source familiar with the matter.

    The investment by Vancouver-based Teck is expected to be made by way of a private placement of Nautilus shares, which trade on the TSX Venture Exchange.

    The source cautioned that the agreement between Teck and Nautilus had not been finalized and that negotiations could fall apart.

    Nautilus shares have not traded since Dec. 1, when they were halted pending news.

    Teck is not the first mining company to invest in Nautilus, which has a licence to drill for minerals off the coast of Papua New Guinea.

    Barrick Gold Corp. owns a 9.9-per-cent stake in the Vancouver company, which has a market capitalization of $215-million. In October, Anglo American PLC invested $25-million (U.S.) in Nautilus as part of a $68.5-million financing.

    © Copyright The Globe and Mail

    www.stockhouse.ca/bullboards/viewmess...
  7. [verwijderd] 6 december 2006 20:26
    Russian Metalloinvest bought 20% shares of Nautilus Minerals

    Nautilus Minerals (NM, Canada) is a pioneer of copper and gold development on the Pacific shelf. Metalloinvest (Russia) bought 19.95% of authorized capital (14.5 M shares) of NM.

    The main object of NM is Salwara area in Papua New Guinea territorial waters. Pilot extraction from the sea bottom show 10-15 g/tonne of gold, 418 g/tonne of silver, 16% of copper and 23.2% of zinc.

    Metalloinvest hopes Salwara could be second Grasberg (Indonesia) that in 2005 produced 766,100 tonnes of copper.

    If successful, Metalloinvest will be among 5 world copper producers together with BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto.

    metalsplace.com/metalsnews/?a=8907
  8. [verwijderd] 10 december 2006 14:16
    Nautilus set to make ocean mining a reality
    Small firm brings world's biggest miners on board
    ANDY HOFFMAN

    From Friday's Globe and Mail

    The notion of mining the ocean floor for minerals has always carried the whiff of the fantastical.

    A massive ship once commissioned by the CIA to raise a sunken Russian submarine was constructed under the guise of being a deep-sea mining vessel owned by the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes.

    Others, including Inco Ltd., spent nearly half-a-billion dollars during the 1960s and '70s trying to extract the mineral riches contained in manganese nodules -- golf-ball-size deposits made up of nickel, copper and cobalt -- found at the bottom of the sea.

    Yet undersea mining for base metals never took off, proving too costly to practise on a commercial scale.

    Now a small company based in Vancouver is trying to change all that. Nautilus Minerals Inc. owns seabed exploration permits off the coast of Papua New Guinea and says it's developed the technology to start mining the ocean floor for copper and gold at its Solwara project by 2009.

    The company, which went public in May with a $25-million initial public offering on the TSX Venture Exchange, has managed to attract an impressive shareholder list that includes a Russian oligarch and three of the world's largest mining companies.

    Zinc giant Teck Cominco Ltd. is the latest big player to buy into the endeavour, which uses remote-controlled robots to explore for sulphide deposits under water.

    Teck, which is also based in Vancouver, agreed yesterday to invest an initial $25-million (U.S.) for a 9.2-per-cent stake in Nautilus. It will acquire 7.5 million shares as part of a private placement.

    As well, Teck has committed to finance an additional $12-million in research and development. It will also have the option to buy an additional $15-million in Nautilus equity and the right to form joint ventures with Nautilus by incurring $25-million in exploration expenditures on each project.

    "It's early stages, but relative to a large mine, which costs $1-billion to $2-billion to develop these days, this is a relatively small investment to evaluate what the potential might be," said Greg Waller, Teck vice-president of investor relations and strategic analysis.

    Deep-sea mining is "still untested technology," said Wendell Zerb, a mining analyst at Canaccord. Mr. Zerb said another question mark for Nautilus is whether it can mine the ocean at a reasonable cost.

    Nautilus has said the grades at its Solwara project are as high as 10 per cent copper, well above the levels found at large-scale surface mines. Costs will be less than $100 a tonne, the company has estimated, in line with traditional mines.

    Soaring metal prices and a lack of new discoveries have sent miners further afield in search of new deposits. "Just as the oil industry realized there was an opportunity to do that offshore, there's an opportunity here and we need to evaluate it," Mr. Waller said.

    The news of the Teck investment gave a 13-per-cent lift to Nautilus shares, which gained 58 cents (Canadian) to $4.90 on the Venture exchange. They had been halted since Dec. 1.

    Other mining majors with Nautilus holdings include Anglo American PLC, which invested $25-million (U.S.) in October as part of a $68.5-million private placement. The London-based miner now owns a 10.1-per-cent stake.

    "We are pleased to see another major base metals company investing in Nautilus and we see this as an interesting opportunity for future mining for base metals," said Anglo spokeswoman Kate Aindow.

    Toronto's Barrick Gold Corp., the world's biggest gold producer, inherited a 5.8-per-cent interest from its takeover of Placer Dome.

    "The fact that these companies have chosen to invest directly in Nautilus rather than developing their own offshore interests is a recognition of how thoroughly and successfully Nautilus has advanced its business plan of becoming the first company to commercially explore the ocean floor for gold, copper, zinc and silver," said David Heydon, Nautilus chief executive officer.

    A company owned by Russian mining oligarch Alsher Usmanov is Nautilus's largest shareholder with a 19.9-per-cent interest. Mr. Usmanov controls Russia's biggest iron ore producers and several steel makers through his holding company Metalloinvest.

    www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story...
  9. [verwijderd] 11 december 2006 19:40
    quote:

    pcrs7 schreef:

    gaat lekker postzak, gefiliciteerd
    -pcrs
    Ik heb er een LT-positie in. Je kunt er op wachten dat er na de megastijgingen van de afgelopen dagen een forse (meerdaagse) daling aan zit te komen. Ik ben benieuwd rond welk niveau NUS gaat stabiliseren.
    Uiteindelijk zal het bedrijf met (boor)resultaten moeten komen.

    gr postzak
  10. forum rang 7 ffff 11 december 2006 20:26
    Postzak,

    Heb ondertussen gemerkt dat je er al heel lang mee bezig bent. ( Postings bij de buren en hier) Dikke proficiat, hoor!
    Maar ik had nu juist begrepen dat jan de Nul met een soort schraapmachine, baggermachine de bodem gaat afschrapen bij Nieuw Guinea. Dus geebn boringen, maar schrapen, baggeren. Jammer genoeg pas dit weekend me in dit aandeel wat verdiept. Is echt een leuk aandeel om nu eens op een bodemschat te gokken. En Jan de Nul weet als geen ander wat je met baggeren allemaal niet boven haalt.....

    Peter
99 Posts
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