Gareth Tredway reports that Michael Johnston, the Nautilus CEO, recently told Mining Journal that the further down the development chain they get, the more interest there is in what we are doing. He says there is growing interest in the various milestones the company has been meeting and is expected to meet along the way. One of those was the taking of delivery of the Seafloor Production Tools (SPTs) from the UK Soil Machine Dynamics in January. At PDAC in March, the company was able to show videos of the equipment at work rather than the 3D animations played previously. And when Johnston rang the closing bell on the Nasdaq a few days prior to the event, the new equipment was presented in all its glory. That was really cool because we had the machines on the big screen in Times Square with a loop playing of them being loaded out and tested.
This particular equipment will be used to cut and extract the high-grade copper and gold from the seafloor at the first production site, the 11Ha Solwara 1 tenement in Papua New Guinea segment of the Bismarck Sea. Operations are expected to start in the first quarter of 2018. Construction of the mining vessel in China is also well under way, with over 50% of the steel now cut. The Chinese really are phenomenal when it comes to building something. They really do have productivity which puts the West to shame, says Johnston. The parts are being sourced from around the world, including Rolls Royce engines and thrusters, cargo handling equipment from Italy Bedeschi, cranes from MacGregor in Norway, electrics from Germany Siemens and navigation equipment from Kongsberg, also out of Norway. They work very closely with the shipping yard on how it all gets put together and how they integrate their equipment into the build, says Johnston. The next key set of news flow will surround the derisking of the SPTs in Oman as they undergo wet testing, having undergone factory acceptance testing in the UK.
Original URL: http://www.mining-journal.com/world-top-articles/seeing-is-believing-for-seafloor-hopeful/
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