Canada's Nautilus Minerals is forming a joint venture to own a mining ship cancelled by a Chinese yard.
The venture with third parties would fund the acquisition and operation of the MAC Goliath, which had been ordered by Dubai's Marine Assets Corporation (MAC).
Nautilus had earlier agreed to pay a charter fee of $199,901 per day over five years for the ship, but will now own and charter it out itself to the Solwara 1 joint venture between one of its subsidiaries and Papua New Guinea’s state nominee Eda Kopa (Solwara).
Chinese shipyard Fujian Mawei tore up the deal with MAC in July, but has continued to install components of the company's seafloor production equipment.
An operating console was fitted in mid-November.
Nautilus is also in talks with Deep Sea Mining Finance to extend the maturity date of the existing secured loan facility, due to expire on 8 January.
The yard previously said MAC had failed to pay the third instalment of $18m plus interest.
The vessel had been due for delivery at the end of 2017.
Nautilus wants the ship for the Solwara 1 gold and copper mining project at a depth of 1,600 metres off the north-eastern coast of Papua New Guinea in the Bismarck Sea.
The 227-metre-long, 40-metre-wide unit is the equivalent of the oil industry’s floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel.
It digs out minerals from the seabed, extracts seawater from the slurry, separates the ore and stores it before loading it onto handysize bulkers.
In February 2017, TradeWinds reported that MAC had been subjected to a cyber attack.
Money stolen was reportedly intended for the MAC Goliath project.
