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Platinum worth $3 billion to be lifted out of water soon
Four years after finding the wreckage of Port Nicholson, sunk by German torpedoes, the estimated 1,707,000 ounces of platinum could be accountable soon.
The Maine based company Sub Sea Research, which discovered the wreckage expects to begin harvesting the bountiful treasure, considered to be among the most valuable precious-metal finds ever from a shipwreck by the end of this month.
The compnay obtained legal rights to the shipwreck and its cargo after completing an admiralty claim in federal court and publishing announcements in three major newspapers. A judge will determine a final ruling on ownership after the cargo is lifted out of the water.
The Port Nicholson is a steel-hulled, 481 ft. merchant ship, coal fired freighter built in 1918 is on its way from Halifax to New York when it was attacked and destroyed.
Since then, it has remained on the ocean floor about 30 miles off Provincetown. The cargo, then valued at about $53 million, was a lend-lease payment to the United States from the Soviet Union.
The Port Nicholson is documented to be carrying 1,707,000 troy ounces of platinum. It may also contain $165M of copper, zinc and war stores
Sub Sea Research first discovered the Port Nicholson in 600-800 feet of water off Cape Cod in 2008. In 2009 SSR obtained legal recognition from the US Courts as the legal owner and salvager of the ship.
Only in the summer of 2011, after 100′s of hours of ROV video, they have seen what appear to be bullion boxes containing 4 bars, each being 400 troy ounces of precious metal.
Crew members then realized, through research of another shipwreck, that at least 30 boxes scattered in and around the ship that seemed to have been used for ammunition were actually full of platinum ingots. Each box weighs approximately 130 pounds, too heavy for the Sub Sea Research remote to lift. The crew is currently awaiting arrival of the stronger remotely operated vehicle to lift the boxes.
About a decade ago, Sub Sea Research brought up a few million dollars in silver coins from a pirate ship off the coast of Puerto Rico, and most recently the crew focused on shipwrecks off the coast of Haiti. But with the political instability that has upended that country in recent decades, securing any sort of legal agreement was difficult, the company said. – BullionStreet
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