Nautilus Minerals has been granted a two-year exploration license by the Government of Papua New Guinea which will allow the company to conduct exploration activities on this area within the southeast Bismarck Sea.
The Exploration License EL2537 covers 2,558 km2, including the same prospective geology that hosts Nautilus’ Solwara 1 deposit. The area was selected based on reconnaissance sampling and survey completed in 2017.
Mike Johnston , Nautilus’ CEO, said: “The granting of this exploration license is excellent news. Work done in the area by the company has identified numerous exploration targets with similar geology to our seafloor massive sulfide deposits found at Solwara 1.
“The work completed last year reconfirms the significant exploration potential for deep sea minerals over expansive yet unexplored metallogenic provinces. Our team has worked very hard to improve exploration efficiency; covering larger areas at lower costs, and the results at hand show that this approach is bearing fruit.”
Subject to receiving additional funding under the company’s previously announced bridge loans and potential credit facility transaction, Nautilus aims to test and progress these targets as soon as practicable, in order to advance the company’s plans of increasing its current resource portfolio to support future seafloor mining operations.