Nautilus Minerals received a loan in the principal amount of $455,000 from Deep Sea Mining Finance under the previously announced loan agreement between Nautilus, two of its subsidiaries and Deep Sea. The agreement provides for a secured structured credit facility of up to $34 million.
Pursuant to the agreement, the company issued an additional 1,954,467 warrants to Deep Sea. Each such warrant entitles Deep Sea to purchase one common share of Nautilus at a price of C$0.17 ($0.13) for a period of five years from the date of issuance of the warrant.
To date, Nautilus has issued a total of 73,024,050 share purchase warrants in connection with loans totaling $17 million. Share purchase warrants are issued on the basis of one warrant for each $0.2328 of principal amount of loan advanced.
The loans bear interest at 8% per annum, payable bi-annually in arrears. All loans have a maturity date of January 8, 2019. Nautilus and Deep Sea are currently in discussions to extend the maturity date, with any transactions subject to all necessary stock exchange, third party and government approvals, as well as compliance with all other regulatory requirements.
The loans will be used to fund Nautilus’ working capital requirements while the company seeks, with the assistance of its financial advisors, the remaining project financing to complete the development of the Solwara 1 Project, a mining lease in search of polymetallic seafloor massive sulphide deposits located in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea.
Nautilus also holds prospective exploration acreage in the western Pacific (granted and under application), as well as in international waters in the Central Pacific.
