Nautilus Minerals' first targeted mining site, Solwara 1, is in the eastern Bismarck Sea. The company also has exploration licenses (red areas) and applications (yellow areas) to search for potential minable sites in more than 525,000 square kilometers of seafloor off the shores of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Fiji, and New Zealand. Exploration licenses give the company the right to look for potential mineral deposits within designated areas. If it finds any, it must still receive a license to mine the sites, which are considerably smaller than the exploration areas. Solwara 1, for example, is about 10,000 times smaller than the size of the exploration license area in which it was found. (Map courtesy of Nautilus Minerals)[back]
|
