Archives: Undersea mining

Fugro is commencing its first project supporting deep sea polymetallic nodule mining under a contract awarded by seafloor mineral exploration company Nauru Ocean Resources Inc (NORI), a subsidiary of DeepGreen Metals Inc. In the deep waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean, its specialist marine geoscience team will perform detailed site characterisation surveys. The project, which[…]

A historic ocean mineral resource expedition, using the Maersk Launcher, launches from San Diego on April 12 to further a mission to responsibly produce the world’s future metal supply from the deep-ocean floor. This is the first of five offshore campaigns that are part of a strategic alliance with Maersk, one of the world’s largest[…]

Namdeb Holdings, a 50/50 joint venture between the Government of the Republic of Namibia and De Beers Group, today announced it is to seek a buyer for its Elizabeth Bay mine to secure its long-term future. The mine was commissioned in 1991 and is located along the south-western coast of Namibia near the town Lüderitz.[…]

Nautilus Minerals Inc has provided an update on submerged trials for the Company’s Seafloor Production Tools, with the final machine, the Bulk Cutter, due to finish trials next month. Submerged trials of the Collecting Machine and Auxiliary Cutter were completed late last year. To date the Bulk Cutter has completed commissioning of the power and[…]

The UNEXMIN UX-1 multi-robot platform and all its components are currently being designed, built and soon be tested and validated in real-life conditions in four mine test sites, with increasingly harder conditions in mine layout and geometry. The mines that will be used as test sites during the project lifetime are (in temporal and difficulty[…]

Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology recently provided updates on the status of its cutting technologies being used on Soil Machine Dynamics’ (SMD) designed and built undersea/submerged mining production tools, namely for Nautilus Minerals’ Solwara 1 copper-gold marine mining project in PNG (see below for a Nautilus update), and the ¡VAMOS! project, where the mining vehicle[…]

West Cumbria Mining (WCM), having submitted its mine planning application to Cumbria County Council earlier this year, is now hoping a decision from planners will be forthcoming in spring 2018, according to local newspaper, Times & Star. If the £165 million mine application is successful, initial construction work would now start in winter 2018 and[…]

Debmarine Namibia, a 50/50 joint venture between the Government of the Republic of Namibia and De Beers Group, today announced it is planning for the construction of the world’s largest custom-built diamond mining vessel. The new vessel, which is projected to cost approximately US$142 million (N$2 billion), is expected to commence operations in 2021. It[…]

The ¡VAMOS! underwater mining team have visited several former mining sites over the last two years, investigating suitability for field testing. Following a careful selection process, eventually two mine sites were selected, in which the novel mining technique will be tried out. The first one is in the United Kingdom: Whitehill Yeo pit at Lee[…]

The world’s largest and most advanced diamond exploration and sampling vessel, the mv SS Nujoma, is ready to start exploring for diamond deposits in Namibian waters, following its official inauguration last week. The new $157 million vessel will discover offshore deposits to secure the future of Namibia’s diamond supply. The vessel will enable Debmarine Namibia,[…]