Us$75 Million North American Private Placement Completed

Nautilus Minerals Inc. has completed the private placement of units reported in Stockwatch on Dec. 22, 2006, and Feb. 5, 2007, for gross proceeds of $88.5-million.

David Heydon, president of the company, commented: “The company is well positioned to execute its business plan, with cash on hand of approximately $324-million which, together with other potential sources of capital, is expected to fund an aggressive exploration program and, subject to timely permitting, to be sufficient to fund the company into production at its primary project, Solwara 1, in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea. The company’s funds are planned to be deployed in the detailed design and construction of subsea mining equipment, including two mechanical miners, power umbilicals, pumps, a 1,800-metre riser pipe and related handling equipment, as well as, subject to permitting, the construction of an onshore concentrator plant and the acquisition of the necessary land on which to build the plant and port.”

Mr. Heydon added: “This is the next piece in our business plan, since taking Nautilus public only 10 months ago, to develop a low-cost base-metal mine based on seafloor massive sulphide copper-zinc-gold silver deposits. This financing from North American institutional investors complements the $99.6-million (U.S.) financings late last year by Anglo American, Teck Cominco and Epion, and the $100-million (U.S.) London-based institutional financing earlier this month.”

At the closing of the offering, the company issued a total of 20,344,850 units for $4.35 per unit, with each unit consisting of one common share and one-half of one warrant of the company. Each whole warrant entitles the holder to purchase one additional common share of the company at a price of $5.655 per share prior to Feb. 21, 2009. In the event that the volume-weighted average price of the company’s common shares on the TSX Venture Exchange or the Toronto Stock Exchange exceeds $6.525 for a period of at least 20 consecutive trading days, Nautilus has the right to give notice to the holders of the warrants that the warrants will expire if not exercised within 30 days, provided that such notice may not be given prior to June 21, 2007.

The offering was managed by a syndicate of agents led by Salman Partners Inc., and included BMO Capital Markets, GMP Securities LP, TD Securities Inc., Blackmont Capital Inc. and Westwind Partners Inc. The agents received a 5-per-cent cash commission of the gross proceeds of the offering on the closing and broker warrants exercisable for 368,449 common shares at a price of $5.655 per share prior to Feb. 21, 2009.

In addition to the four-month hold period imposed by applicable Canadian securities laws and the policies of the TSX-V, which will end on June 21, 2007, all purchasers under the offering are restricted from selling, transferring, pledging or otherwise trading the shares forming part of the units as well as underlying the warrants through the facilities of any stock exchange in Canada or the United Kingdom prior to June 21, 2007.

Application has been made for the 20,344,850 common shares issued in connection with the offering, and for 10,250 common shares issued as a result of the exercise of certain options, to be admitted to the Alternative Investment Market. The common shares are expected to be admitted to trading on Feb. 21, 2007.

THE COMPANY CURRENTLY HAS ON ISSUE

130,149,618 issued common shares

17,171,817 warrants

7,822,964 options

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155,144,399 fully diluted shares

Grant of options

In addition, the company is continuing to increase staff and as such granted 255,000 options to new employees of the company on Feb. 12, 2007, at a price of $4.85 for a term of three years vesting as to 20 per cent every six months for a period of 30 months starting six months after the date of grant.