Treasure Hunters, Odyssey, Came Up Silver in 2012
Odyssey Marine Exploration reports financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2012.
Fourth Quarter 2012 Financial and Operational Highlights
- Total revenue in the fourth quarter was $7.9 million as compared to $0.9 million in the same year-ago quarter.
- The majority of the silver recovered in 2012 from the SS Gairsoppa shipwreck was sold in the quarter with fourth quarter proceeds of $30.1 million to Odyssey ($17.8 million of this was credited in third quarter to expenses as recoupment of project costs).
- Shareholder value was created through mineral exploration and resource estimate operations which resulted in the development of Oceanica Resources in the first quarter of 2013 providing $15 million in cash and 62.6% ownership in Oceanica to the company.
Management Commentary
"In 2012, Odyssey made tremendous progress with our deep-ocean shipwreck projects using our advanced deep-ocean exploration and recovery technology," said Greg Stemm, Odyssey's Chief Executive Officer. "In fact, we achieved a record for the deepest and heaviest cargo recovery from a shipwreck during our work on the Gairsoppa, as we salvaged 48 tons of silver from a depth of more than 15,000 feet."
"The subsequent multi-million dollar sale of silver recovered from the Gairsoppa demonstrated how Odyssey can monetize such assets, generate positive cash flow, and fund our operations internally. Our monetization of this project helps us to move forward on our pipeline of recovery projects and to pursue emerging opportunities in mineral exploration."
"Such opportunities have already included development of Oceanica Resources, a newly organized company engaged in seafloor mineral exploration. As we recently reported, Oceanica controls exclusive mineral permits for areas that our surveys have indicated may hold highly valuable mineral resources. This led to the sale of a portion of Odyssey's ownership stake in Oceanica's which generated gross proceeds of $15 million for 15% of the company. We plan to use these proceeds for various other projects, including our planned silver recoveries from the SS Gairsoppa and SS Mantola.
"Looking ahead, we anticipate the weather conditions in the North Atlantic to allow us to resume Gairsoppa silver recovery operations in late May. Following the completion of the Gairsoppa recovery operations during the 2013 season, we plan to continue recovery operations on the Mantola shipwreck. We expect this to create further asset monetization and strengthen our ability to take advantage of the number of high-value projects in our pipeline."