underwater mining interest technology n cost

Hi folks, some more reading about underwater mining interest, technology and cost...

More interest in marine phosphate mining off New Zealand [1].

More deep sea marine mining scoping/feasability studies [2,3,4,5]:

Worley Parson 2003 scoping study for mining marine polymettalic (Technip update of the WP study commisioned by Placer Dome):
opex: 48$/T (for 2 MTpa)
capex: 260M$

June 2007: Solwara mine plan
Capex: 450M$ (=120$M ship + 120M$ Mining equipment + 160M$ on shore proc + 28M$ exploration + 22M$ Corp. Cost)
Opex: 100$/T (=75$/T mining, transport to port + 14$/T processing)

cheers


Ref:
[1] http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/3/story.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10523989
[2] http://www.isa.org.jm/files/documents/EN/Workshops/Jul06/MJohnson.pdf
[3]http://www.isa.org.jm/files/documents/EN/Workshops/2004/ISA_Heydon2.pdf
[4] http://www.nautilusminerals.com/i/misc/NMDenverGoldSFO.pdf
[5]http://www.nautilusminerals.com/s/Investors-Presentations.asp