Nautilus Minerals confident project will go ahead

NAUTILUS Minerals, the operator of the first under-sea mine, is confident that the Solwara 1 project will go ahead as planned.
Chief executive officer Mike Johnston said the project was set for production next year.
Johnston made a presentation on the project to Mining Minister Johnson Tuke in Port Moresby on Monday.
“The timeline is driven by the delivery of the vessel (for the mining). At this stage, it is schedule for the end of this year, or possibly early next year,” he said.
“It’s about three months from the delivery of the vessel to arrive in Papua New Guinea.
“The end of the first quarter or first half 2019 is the current scheduled startup of the production.
“On the final capital for the project, we need to raise an additional US$250million (K790.90mil).
“There’s working capital and exploration that we need to do which brings it to about US$300million (K949.08mil).
“The vessel is still in dry-dock. It’s 75 per cent.
“The remaining 25 per cent is largely running cables and all the stuff inside the vessel.
“The outside of the vessel is effectively complete.
“And then putting our equipment with joint venture partners onto the vessel and then integrating all of that and equipment we have here in PNG have to go onto that as well, the electronics, the control system.”
Nautilus is a Canadian-listed company focused on deep ocean seafloor resources.