In an initiative denounced by a UN specialized agency, Vancouver-based The Metals Company (TMC) late last week announced it will seek approval from the United States to launch the world’s first deep-sea mine in an area of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico that is highly rich in minerals sought especially by manufacturers of electric car batteries.
The Secretary General of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), Leticia Carvalho, told delegates at a meeting in the agency’s Jamaica headquarters: “Any unilateral action would constitute a violation of international law and directly undermine the fundamental principles of multilateralism.”
The 36-nation Council policymaking body sees the TMC’s initiative as a defiance of the ISA’s authority over 54% of the global seabed and its mandate to manage it for the benefit of humanity.
“This is a desperate, very dangerous announcement,” asserted Louisa Casson, an activist with Greenpeace International. “It’s a slap in the face to international cooperation.”
Gerard Barron, CEO of TMC, said he made the controversial decision after the ISA had missed another deadline for finalizing regulations governing mining biodiverse deep-sea ecosystems after decades-long negotiations. TMC possesses an ISA license sponsored by Nauru to explore for minerals.
Some three dozen ISA member nations, including Canada, Costa Rica, Germany and France, have called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining until more detailed scientific analysis is available on environmental impact.
By seeking permission to mine its ISA license area under US law, observers consider the TMC is going against the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). While the US has never ratified this treaty and is not an ISA member, the treaty in fact reserved some mining areas for the US in the event it one day acceded to the convention.
The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated the area known as Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ) contains more nickel, cobalt and manganese than all combined land reserves in the world. These metals form potato-shaped deposits called polymetallic nodules.
On March 27, TMC formally initiated a process with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under the U.S. Department of Commerce to apply for exploration licenses and commercial recovery permits under existing U.S. legislation, the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act of 1980 (DSHMRA).
Following extensive legal diligence on DSHMRA, NOAA’s implementing regulations and other applicable environmental protection legislation, the TMC said it “strongly believes that the U.S. seabed mining code offers the greatest probability of securing a permit for commercial recovery of deep-sea mineral resources in a timely manner.”
CEO Gerard Barron commented: “Over the last decade, we’ve invested over half a billion dollars to understand and responsibly develop the nodule resource in our contract areas. We built the world’s largest environmental dataset on the CCZ, carefully designed and tested an offshore collection system that minimizes the environmental impacts and followed every step required by the International Seabed Authority. But, despite collaborating in good faith with the ISA for over a decade, it has not yet adopted the Regulations on the Exploitation of Mineral Resources in the Area in breach of its express treaty obligations under UNCLOS and the 1994 Agreement.”
Note: In-depth review of efforts to develop commercial deep-sea mining in the Pacific Ocean outlined in Maritime Magazine Spring 2024 Issue MM112.
LATE NEWS: According to a Reuters report, the White House is weighing an executive order to fast-track permits for deep-sea mining in international waters and let mining companies bypass a UN-backed review process.
(Photos from TMC)