Reuters reported that Nautilus Minerals which plans to mine copper from the Pacific Ocean floor is on track to start production at its flagship Solwara 1 project off the coast of Papua New Guinea by the end of 2013.

The Canadian listed, Australian based company reported a loss of USD 11.4 million for the quarter ended September 30th 2011 but said its cash position rose to USD 155.1 million and that the funds are being used to build the seafloor mining system.

Mr Steve Rogers CEO of Nautilus Minerals said that "Construction of key components is now advancing rapidly and our seafloor production equipment is beginning to take shape."

He said that the company plans to mine various underwater deposits using specially designed machines. The ore will be pumped up to the surface to a support vessel and then transported to shore.

Nautilus said that long lead time items such as the support vessel are being ordered, and that it is doing scale testing of its production process. The company raised CAD 70.5 million in the quarter as part of USD 98.1 million share offering with the other USD 27.6 million raised in October.

(Sourced from Reuters)