VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Marine mining pioneer Nautilus Minerals has successfully completed submerged trials for its seafloor production tools (SPTs), in Papua New Guinea.

"The overarching objective of the trials was to ensure that all three machines met the requirements of their respective functional design specifications in submerged conditions. Results to date indicate that they do. Analysis is ongoing with a view to completinh a full report on the submerged trials by the end of the first quarter," Nautilus CEO Mike Johnston commented this week.

The company said completing the trials in PNG allowed it to work closely with its partner Petromin, officials from the various government regulatory agencies, as well as representatives from the provincial governments of New Ireland and East New Britain.

It also gave community leaders from coastal villages geographically closest to the flagship Solwara 1 site the opportunity to witness the trials of the equipment, and allowed the company to accrue the economic benefits of the testing activity within PNG.

The equipment is currently being prepared for shipment to China where it will be integrated onto the vessel, where it is under construction.

Meanwhile, Nautilus announced last week that it had arranged another bridge loan from Deep Sea Mining Finance, which forms part of a larger secured structured credit facility of up to $34-million to be provided by the lender to the company.

To date, the company has received bridge loans from the lender totalling $4.75-million. In conjunction with the most recent advance of $2-million, Nautilus has issued the lender with 8.59-million further warrants of the company, for a total of 20.4-million share purchase warrants, which entitles the lender to buy one common share of the company at a price of C$0.17 apiece, for a period of five years from the date of issuance of the warrant.

Nautilus expects to cap the bridge loans at $7-million. The loans bear interest at 8% a year, payable bi-annually in arrears with a one-year maturity date.

The loans are meant to fund the company's immediate working capital requirements and facilitate payments required to continue the development of the company's SPTs until they are deployed to Solwara 1.

Meanwhile, Nautilus has gained a new two-year exploration licence offshore PNG, in the south-east Bismarck Sea. The licence covers 2 558 km², and includes the same prospective geology that hosts Nautilus' Solwara 1 deposit. The area was selected based on reconnaissance sampling and a survey completed in 2017. Nautilus acknowledged the assistance it received in identifying this area by the PNG Geological Survey.