Key points
- TSMarine will provide the vessel, operating crew, remotely operated vehicles and drilling equipment for the program.
- The contract has a minimum value of approximately $7-million (U.S.) with options to extend based on success.
- TSMarine will use Rovdrill 3, a second-generation seafloor drilling system able to drill 70-millimetre core wire line holes up to 80 metres deep.
- TSMarine will subcontract drilling to Seafloor Geoservices, part of the Triton Group, whose subsidiary Perry Slingsby Systems built the original Rovdrill systems used in the 2007 Solwara 1 campaign.
Nautilus Minerals Inc. has signed a contract with the TSMarine Group of Companies under which TSMarine has agreed to provide drilling services in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea starting in October, 2010. The drilling program will focus on improving the resource and geotechnical understanding at Solwara 1 as well as scout drilling at other prospects on the Nautilus’s 100-per-cent-owned tenements in the Bismarck Sea.
TSMarine will provide the vessel, operating crew, remotely operated vehicles and drilling equipment. The contract has a minimum value of approximately $7-million (U.S.) with options to extend based on success. TSMarine will use Rovdrill 3, a second-generation seafloor drilling system with the ability to drill 70-millimetre core wire line holes up to 80 metres deep.
Stephen Rogers, Nautilus’s chief executive officer, commented: “The Rovdrill 3 gives Nautilus the capability to more fully test the resource potential of our seafloor massive sulphide systems in the Bismarck Sea. The drilling spread will also collect geotechnical data to optimize equipment design and extend the mine plan at Solwara 1.”
TSMarine is an Australian-owned subsea oil and gas contractor. It will use Seafloor Geoservices as drilling subcontractor. Seafloor Geoservices is part of the Triton Group and provides specialist offshore geotechnical and mineral exploration drilling services. Triton’s subsidiary, Perry Slingsby Systems, designed and built the original Rovdrill systems that completed the successful 2007 Solwara 1 drilling campaign.
