Input Stories

A Canadian mining firm is looking at ways to get minerals off the ocean floor following President Trump’s recent executive order accelerating permitting and access to critical minerals (The Wall Street Journal, subscription). 
 
What’s going on: “Through its U.S. subsidiary, [The Metals Company] said it would be applying for permits to mine the deep seabed in international waters through a law that was first passed by Congress in 1980, the Canadian headquartered company said in its earnings call” on March 27.   

• In 2022, the International Seabed Authority—the United Nations observer organization that’s been charged with overseeing the seafloor—gave The Metals Company the green light to use a prototype minerals collector to vacuum chunks of metal off the bottom of the Pacific Ocean near the island countries of Tonga, Nauru and Kiribati. 

Why it’s important: Cobalt, manganese, nickel, copper and other minerals used widely in defense, technology and health applications “are found in vast quantities in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in golf-ball-sized rocks known as polymetallic nodules.”   
 
No code in sight: For the past two weeks, member states of the ISA—which the U.S. did not join—have been meeting to discuss new laws covering seafloor mining, but those attending the discussions say “it is unlikely a mining code will be established this year.”