Odyssey Marine Ceases Gairsoppa and Mantola Recovery Until Spring

Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. (NASDAQ: OMEX) is winning on the leaderboard this morning, but unfortunately that is leading the position for stocks down the most. The real focus is not on increased valuations that were mentioned and not on additional shipwreck operations continuing through the winter. Odyssey Marine said that its Gairsoppa and Mantola shipwreck recovery operations are now completed for 2012 and that these would resume in the spring of 2013.

The company stated:

Due to current weather conditions in the North Atlantic and the previous commitment of the Seabed Worker to another charter, operations on the SS Gairsoppa and SS Mantola shipwrecks have been deferred until weather in the area is appropriate for operations in the second quarter of 2013. The ship is offloading approximately 17,000 additional ounces of silver and other artifacts in Falmouth before it continues on to Norway to conclude the charter. This additional silver bullion, originally thought to indicate another area of the ship containing silver cargo, was the only additional silver found in the areas inspected since offloading the first cargo of silver.

As far as the valuation of the Gairsoppa, a total of 1,218 silver ingots with an expected $44 million yield at current silver prices were recovered from the vessel, as well as several hundred artifacts that have been declared to the U.K. Receiver of Wreck. The company noted that this will add some $26 million to net income in 2012. Odyssey anticipates that an additional 1,599 insured silver ingots and what could be a substantial amount of uninsured silver remains on the Gairsoppa site.

In addition, there is a reported 600,000 ounces of insured silver believed to remain on the SS Mantola.

There is no doubt that is one highly unusual stock. We gave it the award of being one of the most unusual public companies to invest in that exists and that remains the case after eighteen months.

Shares are getting clubbed so far on the news. After closing at $3.69, shares are down 22% at $2.85 against a 52-week range of $2.11 to $4.36. The market cap as of yesterday’s close was just over $272 million.

JON C. OGG