The report noted that based on this, Nautilus Minerals’ Solwara 1 project in Papua New Guinea was expected to be “far superior” compared to existing copper projects.
The environmental and social benchmarking analysis report compared the soon-to-be operational Solwara 1 project with three ‘on-land’ mines – Bingham Canyon in Utah, USA; Prominent Hill in South Australia; and the proposed Intag mine in Ecuador – according to natural capital accounting methods.
Through this, Earth Economics found that the monetary damage of terrestrial mines on the environment was significantly greater than Solwara 1 and that common liabilities associated with them, such as freshwater contamination and tailings and overburden failures which threaten downstream communities, do not exist.
Other key findings of the report were that communities would not be displaced by the project, with no impact on food production or fresh water supplies, no significant risks of disasters and no impact on pollination, soil formation, erosion and historical or cultural values.
It also said global demand for copper continued to rise and, despite declining copper ore concentrations, there was a need to meet it while reducing fresh water use and contamination, mine footprints and carbon emissions from copper mining.
Nautilus CEO Mike Johnson said the industry had to look at more sustainable ways to produce the commodity and minimise its impact.
"Growing copper demand requires our industry to look at more sustainable ways to meet this demand,” he said.
“As showcased in Earth Economics’ report, seafloor mining has the potential to not only provide economic benefits within the communities nearest to the operations while minimising the impact of copper mining, it also has the potential to change the physical nature of the mining industry for the better.
“We believe that the proposed Solwara 1 project will launch a new frontier in the blue economy and resource sector [and] as the first publicly-listed company in the world to commercially explore seafloor mining opportunities, Nautilus is committed to leading the way and setting a high bar for developing an environmentally and socially responsible approach for the industry.
“Commissioning this report is part of our ongoing process to review, estimate and evaluate project impacts through objective third-party experts”
Although the study was commissioned by Nautilus, the company said it was committed to transparency.
“Any scientists or research groups that Nautilus collaborates with are free to publish the results of their studies, regardless of the outcome,” the company said.
