Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Canadian company says its exploration will bring many benefits to PNG

Posted at 23:34 on 04 June, 2008 UTC

The Canadian company, Nautilus Minerals, says its exploration will bring many benefits to PNG, including new jobs, infrastructure and royalties.

The company says it has extracted a marketable, high-grade copper from Papua New Guinea’s sea bed.

Nautilus has done sea bed test extraction’s in PNG and it’s starting explorations in Tonga with vessels expected to arrive there within the next two months.

It has also lodged exploration license applications in Fiji, Solomon Islands and New Zealand.

Its business development vice-president, Scott Trebilcock says

its test run in PNG was successful.

“Part of that programme has yielded the production of a high grade copper concentrate. It’s a very marketable product in the world markets and proves that we can extract this material and produce a product that recovers a high percentage of the copper.”

Scott Trebilcock says they hope to commercially extract the mineral in PNG by the third quarter of 2010.

He adds deep sea mining is less damaging to the environment than land mining.