Nautilus Minerals has lodged 25 exploration licence applications covering prospective areas of the Solomon Sea in Papua New Guinea.

 These new applications, which are in addition to the 47 applications announced on November 20, cover an area of 63,950sqkm and brings to 186,343sqkm the total area held by Nautilus under exploration licence or licence application in PNG.

Nautilus president and CEO David Heydon says that "By taking this additional strategic step, Nautilus is further cementing its first mover advantage as the leader in the emerging seafloor mining space.

"We now hold under exploration licence or exploration application dominant positions in two prospective regions.

"We have an aggressive exploration program planned for the coming year and expect that we will significantly build our prospect inventory through this work".

Nautilus has raised US$121.6 million in the last seven months and with technical collaboration agreements with Teck Cominco and Anglo American has the financial and technical resources to aggressively explore this significant holding.

The company has further granted a total of 20,000 options to one employee at a strike price of $5.80. These options have a term of three years vesting as to 20% every six months for a period of 30 months starting six months after the date of grant.

Nautilus is the first company to commercially explore the ocean floor for gold - copper and zinc seafloor massive sulphide deposits and is positioned to become a world leader in underwater mineral exploration. The company's main focus for 2007 is the Solwara Project, which is located in the territorial waters and EEZ of Papua New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and comprises 186,343sqkm exploration licences and applications.