Odyssey's Oceanica find larger than thought

TAMPA — Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. (symbol: OMEX; recent price: $1.73) says an earlier report on the phosphate rock ore reserve at its offshore Oceanica deposit was too low. A new report estimates the phosphate rock ore there is closer to 360.7 million tons, a 20% increase over the last preliminary assessment total of 301.5 million tons for the site.

The report comes from 199 drill holes, which have been tested and analyzed to date. This compares to 161 drill holes that were previously analyzed. However, the sample area did not include the areas of pure phosphate, which leads the company to expect that further testing will increase the phosphorite resources estimated in the deposit.

The Florida Industrial and Phosphate Research Institute tested more than 760 total core samples from the site.