Nautilus Minerals has signed a contract for construction of a 191 metre vessel to be used at Solwara 1, the company"s deep sea copper and gold mining project off Papua New Guinea.

The Jan De Nul Group, one of the world"s leading dredging companies, has signed the shipbuilding contract with La Naval, in Sestao Northern Spain for the construction of "Jules Verne".

Nautilus CEO Davuid Heydon says: "The signing of the contract with the shipyard for 'Jules Verne' is a major step forward in the delivery of the Solwara 1 Project.

"With the ship build in hand, Jan De Nul engineers, in close cooperation with Nautilus, will now focus on the award of the design and build of the special mining and pumping equipment while the Nautilus environmental team works on completion of the Environmental Impact Statement."

The contract follows the start of manufacturing for key components of the ship which included the award of five 4500 kW main diesel engines to the MAN Diesel Group.