9 Jul 2012

Next step taken in undersea mining project

1:09 pm on 9 July 2012

Chatham Rock Phosphate says it is taking the next step in its undersea mining project after successful talks with Royal Boskalis Westminster, which is based in the Netherlands.

The company is working on a project to mine phosphate for use as a fertiliser and has a license to explore more than 4000 square km of seafloor on the Chatham Rise, 450km east of Christchurch.

Chatham Rock and Boskalis have been working together for the past year since Boskalis was appointed as the project's technical partner to design a process to extract the phosphate.

Chatham Rock managing director Chris Castle says Boskalis will spend the rest of the year refining its methodology for recovering and separating the phosphate nodules.