Feasibility assessment methods for the economic extraction of seafloor massive sulphide deposits

The potential emergence of mining seafloor massive sulphide deposits make it necessary to assess the economic feasibility of these deposits. In this thesis it is suggested that a series of calculations can be used to increase the level of confidence from a geological occurrence to an ore reserve. An analysis has been done on uncertainties that effect the economic feasibility of mining seafloor massive sulphide deposits. The uncertainties are divided in topics and analysed. These topics include geology, extraction, transportation, production, shipping, legal, commodity prices, OPEX, CAPEX, environment and discount rate. Each topic has its own uncertainties, which have been categorised into four categories from low uncertainty to extreme uncertainty. Mitigations are suggested to obtain the highest possible level of confidence. The study indicates that some of the uncertainties require more attention than others. The deep-sea mining equipment poses one of the greatest uncertainties. The analysis and evaluation of the parameters involved in the assessment of the economic feasibility have then been used to assess the Nautilus Minerals Solwara 1 project. According to the analysis the Solwara 1 project is economically feasible. From an operation perspective the Solwara 1 project is not feasible as no adequate testing of the deep-sea mining equipment has been conducted.Civil Engineering and GeosciencesGeoscience & EngineeringResource Engineerin