Nautilus Minerals closes financing

On December 11, 2006, Nautilus Minerals Inc. announced that it had closed its non-brokered private placement of 9,425,758 common shares at a price of US$3.30 per common share, for gross proceeds of US$31.1 million. Of this total, Epion Holdings Limited, (a company wholly owned by Russian investor Alisher Usmanov and the largest shareholder of Nautilus) acquired 1,850,000 common shares for US$6,105,000 and 750,000 share purchase warrants to acquire additional common shares at a price of US$5.00 per share until June 1, 2008.

The proceeds of the private placement will be used to fund the development of the Company's business.

Fasken Martineau advised Epion Holdings in this transaction with a team comprised of Michael Bourassa, Robert Eberschlag and student-at-law Christine Gallo.