First Steel Cut on Nautilus’ Production Support Vessel
The steel cutting ceremony for the Nautilus Minerals’ production support vessel occurred last Friday, September 25, 2015 at the shipyard of Fujian Mawei Shipbuilding.
The vessel is to be used by Nautilus and its PNG partner, Eda Kopa (Solwara) Limited, as the base for its seafloor operations planned at the Solwara 1 Project, in the Bismarck Sea of Papua New Guinea.
The ceremony was attended by the General Manager of Fujian Shipbuilding Industry Group Company Limited, Xie Rongxing, the Chairman, Zhang Zhitong, and General Manager, Huang Yihao of Fujian Mawei Shipbuilding, Senior Vice President of Greater China (ABS), Kwok-Wai Lee, Robin Reeves, CEO of Marine Assets Corporation (MAC) and representatives from the MAC team.
MAC will own and provide the marine management of the production support vessel, which will be chartered to Nautilus.
Mike Johnston, Nautilus’ CEO, commented: “I am delighted that steel cutting has happened on schedule and in line with our plan to commence testing and initial production activities at Solwara 1. As we have now moved into the physical construction phase of the vessel, it was important to mark such a significant occasion. We have worked with Fujian Mawei Shipyard, MAC and others on our project for nearly a year now, and have established a very good relationship, which will continue over the coming years. Our objective remains to develop the world’s first commercial high grade seafloor copper-gold project and launch the deep water seafloor resource production industry. With the eyes of the world waiting to see the dawn of this new industry, we look forward to taking delivery of the vessel in December 2017 to enable us to commence our seafloor operations in Q1 2018.”
