{"id":1132239,"date":"2019-08-13T05:54:06","date_gmt":"2019-08-13T10:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=999161"},"modified":"2019-08-13T05:54:06","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T10:54:06","slug":"nautilus-minerals-plans-to-mine-the-seafloor-sink-deeper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1132239","title":{"rendered":"Nautilus Minerals\u2019 plans to mine the seafloor sink deeper"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Struggling Nautilus Minerals, one of the world\u2019s first companies to plan mining the seafloor for riches, will soon joint a long list of failed attempts to extract minerals in remote places as its creditors have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nautilusminerals.com\/irm\/PDF\/2095_0\/Nautilusobtainscreditorapprovalofplanofcompromiseandarrangement\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">voted this week<\/a> in favour of liquidating the company.<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Canadian firm, which tried for years to fully develop its Solwara 1 gold, copper and silver project, off the coast of Papua Guinea, faced relentless community opposition, culminating in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lawyersweekly.com.au\/wig-chamber\/22429-world-first-mining-case-launched-in-png\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">legal action<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;public appeals&nbsp;to the government.<\/p>\n<p>Those issues, together with environmental concerns and the fact that the company <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/nautilus-setting-jv-secure-support-vessels-solwara-1-project\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">lost its&nbsp;only production support vessel<\/a>&nbsp;last year, eroded investors\u2019 support, forcing Nautilus to delist from the Toronto Stock Stock Exchange in March.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, the Vancouver-based firm\u2019s assets, including equipment, intellectual property and mining leases, have been put up for sale through PricewaterhouseCoopers.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;Nautilus has left the Papua New Guinea government facing a debt\u00a0equivalent to one-third of the country\u2019s annual health budget for its 9 million people.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><cite>Andy Whitmore, Deep Sea Campaign<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>In the process, Nautilus has left the Papua New Guinea government, which still owns a 15% stake in the Solwara I project as well as equipment,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.treasury.gov.pg\/html\/national_budget\/files\/2013\/budget_documents\/Related%20Budget%20Documents\/2018%20Final%20Budget%20Outcome.pdf\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">facing a debt<\/a>&nbsp;equivalent to one-third of the country\u2019s annual health budget for its 9 million people.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe company is essentially worthless. Its equipment is tailored to the mining of deep sea hydrothermal vents which the world now agrees are too ecologically valuable to mine,\u201d Deep Sea Mining Campaign\u2019s (DSMC) Andy Whitmore, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.deepseaminingoutofourdepth.org\/nautilus-emerges-barely-alive-and-impotent\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven other deep-sea mining<br \/>\ncompanies such as DeepGreen&nbsp;suggest mining hydrothermal vents create an<br \/>\nunacceptably high level of environmental impact,\u201d Whitmore noted.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike other seafloor mining companies, including&nbsp;Nautilus, DeepGreen doesn\u2019t want to drill, blast or dig the bottom of the ocean. The explorer, also Canadian, plans instead <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/deepgreen-closer-mining-battery-metals-sea-150m-injection\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">to scoop up small metallic rocks<\/a> located thousands of metres below the surface in the North Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n<p>The deep sea, more than half the<br \/>\nworld\u2019s surface, contains&nbsp;more cobalt, nickel, copper, manganese and rare<br \/>\nearth metals&nbsp;than all land reserves combined, according to the US<br \/>\nGeological Survey.<\/p>\n<p>Companies exploring or already<br \/>\ndeveloping projects to mine the seafloor argue the extraction of those<br \/>\ndeep-buried riches could help&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theneweconomy.com\/energy\/deep-sea-mining-could-provide-access-to-a-wealth-of-valuable-minerals\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">diversify the sources currently supplying metals<\/a>&nbsp;needed<br \/>\nfor electronics and evolving green technologies, such as electric vehicles<br \/>\n(EVs) and solar panels.<\/p>\n<p>Academics and scientists, including<br \/>\nthe DSMC &nbsp;\u2014 a group of non-profit<br \/>\norganizations and citizens from the Pacific Islands, Australia, Canada and the US<br \/>\n\u2014 are concerned by the lack of research on the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/mining.com\/new-zealand-deep-sea-life-needs-better-protection-mining-study-shows\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">possible impacts<\/a>&nbsp;of high seas mining. They fear the<br \/>\nactivity could devastate fragile ecosystems that are slow to recover in the<br \/>\nhighly pressurized darkness of the deep sea, as well as having knock-on effects<br \/>\non the wider ocean environment.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Not enough studies<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Last year, the European Parliament called for a ban on seabed mining until the environmental impacts and risks of disturbing unique deep-sea ecosystems are understood. <\/p>\n<p>In&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/www.europarl.europa.eu\/sides\/getDoc.do?pubRef=-\/\/EP\/\/NONSGML+TA+P8-TA-2018-0004+0+DOC+PDF+V0\/\/EN\" >the resolution<\/a>, it also urged the European Commission to persuade member states to stop sponsoring and subsidizing licenses to explore and exploit the seabed in international waters as well as within their own territories.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly after, an&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/mining.com\/experts-come-up-with-plan-for-protecting-deep-sea-life-from-mining\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">international team of researchers<\/a>&nbsp;published a set of<br \/>\ncriteria to help the International Seabed Authority (ISA), a UN body made up of<br \/>\n168 countries, protect biodiversity from deep-sea mining activities.<\/p>\n<p>So far, it has granted 29 licences<br \/>\nto governments and companies, authorizing them to explore in international<br \/>\nwaters.<\/p>\n<p>Nautilus, however, has been the<br \/>\nonly company to go beyond the exploration stage for what was supposed to be&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/mining.com\/worlds-first-seabed-mine-to-begin-production-in-2019\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the first polymetallic seabed mine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>More projects may be surfacing soon, as the ISA is expected to open up the high seas to mining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Creditors have voted in favour of liquidating the company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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