May 1, 2013

The concept study that confirmed the economic viability of the project also found strong support from governments, the availability of suitable land locations, strong global market demand for the product and sound technical feasibility.

The project's financial viability was assessed through engineering analysis and costs were combined with extensive bio-economic modelling, Proactive Investors reports.

CO2 has identified the best land areas for the facilities in order to minimise costs and maximise efficiencies in developing and operating the black tiger prawn project. The company will now consider under the pre-feasibility study the finer engineering, production system and product marketing details of Project Sea Dragon -- the first of an up to 10 large scale land-based aquaculture production systems in northern Australia, each designed to have an output of 100,000 tonnes of black tiger prawns per annum.

CO2 has also begun talks with potential off-take partners and other companies interested in joint venture operations and financial investment, who may want to develop part of or the entire project. The company expects to make an announcement in the coming weeks about the site it is currently selecting.

Meanwhile, the company will be running the project along with Western Australian Resources Limited (WARL), a firm with which it merged in September 2012. The combined management expertise and project experience of the two will be favourable for the development of Project Sea Dragon given the resulting greater financial strength, capital raising capacity and market accessibility to the Project.

"The aquaculture project being developed by WARL fits within CO2 Group's environmental philosophy as the whole production process is proposed to be developed on shore in a closed water system resulting in no adverse environmental impact on the ocean or other water sources, providing a sustainable and renewable protein source and high conversion of inputs to outputs," Andrew Grant, CEO of CO2 Group said.