Nautilus Minerals (TSX: T.NUS, Stock Forum) said it expects to resolve an ownership dispute with Papua New Guinea over its Solwara 1 underwater mine after the country's national elections, which start on Saturday and run for two weeks, Reuters reported late Thursday.
The miner also added that it expects to have a financing plan in place within the next month to fund construction of the project's support vessel after its European partner reduced funding in the ship, which will be the operations base for the seafloor mining project.
"We're not anticipating huge delays here," said Nautilus CEO Stephen Rogers. "We're not talking a year or anything like that. It's going to be months."
Total capital cost to complete the sea floor production system, including delivery of material to the deepwater port of Rabaul, is expected to be about $407 million.