SMD Deliver Deep Sea Mining Vehicles

02.02.2016
This week marks a significant milestone for subsea engineering company SMD as the MV Happy Delta, loaded with the world’s first deep sea mining vehicles, leaves the port of Tyne.



In late 2007 SMD was awarded with a contract to design and build the world’s first deep sea mining vehicles for Canadian listed company Nautilus Minerals. Eight years on, having worked in close partnership with the customer, this massive feat of engineering is complete. The SPTs and associated equipment, totalling over 1000 Tonnes, have now been loaded onto the vessel which has set sail for Duqm Port in Oman where they will undergo further testing.

As well as the three mining machines or Seafloor Production Tools (SPTs), SMD designed and manufactured the full spread equipment required to remotely operate, launch and recover the SPTs from the deck of the ship onto which they will be installed in 2017.



SMD conducted rigorous commissioning and factory acceptance testing on the full spread of equipment in dry conditions on land at their production facility in Wallsend, North East England prior to shipping. The SPTs will now undergo extensive wet testing at the port facility in Oman which is designed to provide a submerged demonstration of the fully assembled SPTs, prior to commencement of the first mining operations in 2018.

The load out operation took place at Swans, an advanced manufacturing site being developed next to SMD’s site on the banks of the River Tyne. It was the first operation of its kind to take place at Swans’ recently dredged 9m-deep quay.

SMD CEO Andrew Hodgson commented “It is a fantastic achievement for SMD to deliver another engineering world first project. Our engineers have taken proven technology which we have developed over forty years, and adapted it for a new application to suit Nautilus’ needs, and we’re very proud of that.
We thrive on using our problem solving skills to help our customers make the impossible possible and we’re delighted to have been involved in what stands to be a game-changing project facilitating birth of a new industry.”

Nautilus CEO Mike Johnston commented “Nautilus’ approach in building the world’s first seafloor mine was to seek out world class partners, leaders in their respective fields, and SMD’s unparalleled leadership in the design and manufacture of remotely operated vehicles operating in the earth’s harshest environments certainly reaffirms the validity of that strategy. SMD’s engineering design and manufacture of our seafloor production tools is simply second to none; we thank them for their invaluable partnership and their determined leadership in building these impressive machines, and we look forward to seeing them in action on the seafloor once our project at Solwara 1 is in production in 2018.”

Patrick Melia, Chief Executive of North Tyneside Council which owns Swans, said: “We are delighted that world-leading projects like this are being delivered at Swans. Our state-of-the-art advanced manufacturing facilities being developed at Swans and other sites make North Tyneside one of the best places to do business, and we’re thrilled to be helping those in the marine, energy and offshore industries to compete in a global market.”


About SMD

SMD is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of remote intervention equipment, working in hazardous environments worldwide.

The product portfolio includes the world’s largest range of subsea remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) such as work-class and specialist trenching vehicles; as well as marine renewable energy devices, subsea installation technologies and submerged mining equipment.

Customers span a range of sectors from energy (oil and gas, marine renewables and offshore wind infrastructure), to telecoms, mining, naval / military and scientific communities.



About Nautilus Minerals

Nautilus Minerals Inc is the first company to commercially explore the seafloor for massive sulphide systems, a potential source of high grade copper, gold, zinc and silver. Nautilus is developing a production system using existing technologies adapted from the offshore oil and gas industry, dredging and mining industries to enable the extraction of these high grade Seafloor Massive Sulphide (SMS) systems on a commercial scale.

Nautilus’ copper-gold project, Solwara 1, is under development in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea. The Company has been granted the Environment Permit and Mining Lease required for resource development at this site.

The Company plans to grow its tenement holdings in the exclusive economic zones and territorial waters of Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Zealand as well as other areas outside the Western Pacific.

Nautilus has among its significant shareholders, three of the world’s largest resource companies and the nature of its alliances and technical partners place it firmly in pole position as the world leader in deepwater exploration and the development of mineral systems.



About The Project

The vehicles will be used to mine polymetallic seafloor massive sulphides, rich in copper and gold, at the Solwara 1 deposit which sits on the seafloor at a water depth of some 1600 metres, off the coast of Papua New Guinea. The mine site boasts a copper grade of approximately 7%, which is significantly higher than land-based copper mines, where the copper grade today averages typically 0.6%. In addition, gold grades of well over 20 g/tonne have been recorded in some intercepts at Solwara 1 and the average grade is approximately 6 g/tonne.

The excavation and collection of mineralised material has been split into three individual tasks, with each carried out by a different vehicle. The Auxiliary Cutter is designed as the pioneering tool which prepares the rugged sea bed for the more powerful Bulk Cutter. These two tools gather the excavated material; the third, the Collecting Machine, will collect the cut material by drawing it in as seawater slurry with internal pumps and pushing it through a flexible pipe to the subsea pump and on to the vessel via the Riser and Lifting System.

The Auxiliary Cutter weighs in at 250 tonnes. It is a preparatory machine that deals with rough terrain and creates benches for the other SPTs to work on. It will operate on tracks with spud assistance and has a boom mounted cutting head for flexibility.

The Bulk Cutter is the heaviest of the three SPTs, weighing 310 tonnes when fully assembled. It is designed to be the high productivity machine responsible for the bulk of production.

The Collecting Machine is the lightest of the three SPTs, weighing 200 tonnes when fully assembled. It is designed to collect material cut from the seafloor by drawing it in as seawater slurry with internal pumps and pushing it through a flexible pipe to the Riser and Lifting System and onto the vessel.



About Swans

The Swans Enterprise Zone, on the site of the former Swan Hunter shipyard in Wallsend, is being developed by North Tyneside Council and its development partner, Kier Property, as an advanced manufacturing hub for the energy, marine, subsea and offshore sectors.

The council completed new infrastructure at the site, consisting of roads and utility supplies, in December 2015. The 13-hectare site includes a working quay with access to a 210m-long, 9m-deep berth to serve the load out requirements of businesses located at the site.

Funding has been secured from the European Regional Development Fund, Homes and Communities Agency, the North East Local Enterprise Partnership Growing Places Fund and Single Local Growth Fund.

For more details visit www.swanstyneside.co.uk


Location: Duqm Port,Oman, Wallsend, UK (?)









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