Mawarid Mining to acquire stake in Canadian firm

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MUSCAT -- Oman's biggest private mining firm,

Company, a subsidiary of MB Holdings Company LLC, plans to acquire a stake in Canadian miner Nautilus Minerals, which has initiated development of the world's first seafloor copper-gold project in the south-western Pacific.

The acquisition is proposed to be effected through Mawarid's participation in a non-brokered private placement of common shares, which will help Nautilus raise around $100 million to fund the development of its pioneering deepwater mining venture.

Mawarid aims to invest approximately $50.1 million as part of the placing, thereby acquiring 19.4 million shares equivalent to 9.98 per cent of the expanded share capital of Nautilus. The move underscores parent company MB Holding's aggressive growth strategy which has seen its local and international operations, encompassing the hydrocarbon, mining and mineral processing sectors, grow steadily.

Established in 1982, the Group has operations and subsidiaries spread across the globe, including the Middle East, Europe, North Africa, Asia, Asia-Pacific, Australia and New Zealand. Its expanding international footprint has come to embody the Omani private sector's ambitions to venture into the global arena.

Wholly owned mining subsidiary Mawarid operates a number of open-pit copper mines in the Batinah area, as well as processes ore into copper concentrate at its Lasail facility near Sohar. Copper reserves within Mawarid's licenses total around 4.3 million tonnes at 2.2 per cent copper, with further resources of 21.6 million tonnes containing a concentration of 1.8 per cent of copper.

With its sights already on prospective projects in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, the company's vision is to emerge as the biggest privately owned mining firm in the Middle East. According to a statement issued by Vancouver-based Nautilus Minerals, the private placement will generate funds for the initial development of Solwara 1, the world's first deepwater copper and gold project in the Bismarck Sea off Papua New Guinea.

Underwater exploration carried out in 2007 revealed a Massive Sulphide System, which is a potential source of high grade copper, gold, zinc and silver. Along with some $112 million in cash reserves and a contribution from joint venture partner Petromin PNG Holdings Limited, Nautilus plans to utilise the funds generated from the private placement to construct a seafloor resource production system, which initially will be deployed at Solwara 1.

The seafloor system will use technologies adapted from the offshore oil and gas industry to enable the extraction of ore on a commercial scale from the seabed. Participating along with Mawarid MiningMawarid Mining Loading... in the private placement are existing Nautilus strategic shareholders Metalloinvest and Anglo American.

Metalloinvest, which is one of Europe's biggest commercial iron ore producers, has subscribed for 8.2 million shares, while global mining group Anglo American has subscribed for the remaining 7 million of the total 39 million shares issued by Nautilus as part of the private placement.

Canadian-registered Nautilus holds around 600,000 square kilometres of exploration acreage in the western Pacific, in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu and Tonga, as well as in international waters in the eastern Pacific. Its major shareholders include Metalloinvest, with a 21 per cent holding, and Anglo American, with an 11.1 per cent stake.

Authors: mining - Yahoo! News Search Results