Nautilus Minerals (LON:NUS) , the mining company with plans to produce copper and gold from the seafloor off Papua New Guinea, said this morning that it had taken a major step forward, with the formation of a strategic partnership with German shipping company Harren & Partner. The two sides intend to set up a joint venture company that will own and operate a production support vessel which will serve as the operational base for Nautilus to run its first development project, Solwara 1, in the Bismarck Sea. The move is precisely what COO, Anthony O’Sullivan suggested as a possible option for Nautilus when he spoke to Stockopedia in January this year.
The vessel will be a floating platform for the mobilisation and remote operation of production machinery operating on the seafloor at water depths of approximately 1600 metres. The seafloor production tools will cut and gather ore which will be pumped in slurry form to the production support vessel, where it will be processed through a dewatering plant before transfer to barges for transport and subsequent treatment.
Under the terms of the strategic partnership, Harren will design and construct the vessel at a cost of approximately €127 million (US$167 million), with delivery scheduled for the first half of 2013. On delivery, the vessel will be sold to the vessel JV company in which Harren will hold a 50.01% interest. The remaining 49.99% of the vessel JV will be controlled by Nautilus through a holding company in which the PNG government owns a 5% stake through its wholly owned company Petromin PNG Holdings Ltd.
The JV will charter the vessel to the mining joint venture, in which Nautilus holds a 70% stake and Petromin holds a 30% stake, to carry out its seafloor production operations, for a period of eight years, at an average daily rate of US$70,000. Harren will provide crewing, logistics and ship management services to the vessel JV which will be on charged at a daily rate of US$10,000 to the mining JV. The mining JV will provide a charterer's guarantee to the vessel JV for an initial value of US$10 million reducing over a five year period to US$2.5 million.
Funding for the vessel JV will include approximately €75 million in bank debt to be procured by Harren, which also will contribute €16 million in…
A similar vessel was ordered in 2006, named Jules Verne. This one is called JV.
I hope nobody gets confused by the old blueprints
http://www.nautilusminerals.com/i/pdf/JV-boat_blueprint.pdf
