Bluewater Metals South Pacific Ltd, an Australian exploration company the newest in Tonga, will begin looking for high-grade copper-gold-zinc-silver deposits in our waters in the second half of this year.

The company's Chief Executive Officer Dr Timothy McConachy and Director Harvey Cook said in Nuku'alofa on March 6, that their focus is to explore for high-grade sea floor massive sulphides containing copper, zinc, and silver over an area of 65,000 square meters.

The CEO said, they had selected a ship to do the exploration work, which involves a ship borne survey comprising of high definition sonar multibeam mapping, high resolution side sonar and two remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and submersible drill rig.

He said the detailed survey would entail mapping out of targeted areas thus put geologists on the ROV to scout seafloor for samples, which would take a month at sea. "It is a very expensive exercise but very detailed and the best way," he added.

"We haven't determined whether the minerals we are looking for are commercially viable and until we do we won't make any big promises but we do know there is potential here and we are here to assess that potential," said the CEO.

Prospecting Licence

The company was granted their Mineral Prospecting License last year. There are already two other companies working in Tonga, the Nautilus Minerals Tonga Ltd and KORDI the Korean Ocean Research and Development Institute.

"We are also the three of only four companies in the world doing this kind of work (the fourth is UK's Neptune Minerals). So we are three of only four exploration companies in the world and three in Tonga", said the CEO.

To date the company has conducted an initial research that involved a comprehensive review and reassessment of previous investigations in 300 published papers and reports. They have highlighted a number of target areas that they plan to investigate.

Director Harvey Cook added this is a new industry for Tonga, "a country that has a small landmass with no strong minerals but with a huge ocean mass with potential minerals, this industry can make a huge difference for Tonga in the future."

Bluewater has operations in PNG, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and applications in Fiji.