New Zealand seabed phosphate explorer Chatham Rock Phosphate has sold an almost 20% stake in the listed company to one of the world's largest dredging concerns for $3.5 million.
Chatham Rock and the Netherlands-headquartered Royal Boskalis Westminster NV yesterday entered the investment agreement and also a contract for designing a phosphate recovery system to operate in depths of about 400m on the Chatham Rise.
Chatham issued 15% of the 22c shares to Boskalis yesterday, with a shareholder vote required before Boskalis can take its holding to the 19.99% target.
Boskalis has a fleet of more than 1100 vessels and 14,000 employees spread over operations in 75 countries, The services contract means Boskalis will undertake initial design work on a phosphate extraction and recovery system, then geotechnical reports and conceptual design of the systems, and the final design work.
The total cost of the services to Chatham Rise is 5.13 million ($NZ7.86 million), with an estimate of the final design of 4 million split equally between Chatham and Boskalis.
