Seabed miner The Metals Company said Tuesday it has submitted an application for a U.S. license to mine an area of the Pacific Ocean administered by a United Nations-affiliated organization. The move sets up a showdown between the Trump administration and international regulators over control of minerals critical to the energy transition.
Canadian-registered The Metals Company (TMC) said its U.S. subsidiary has also filed two applications for U.S. licenses to prospect for minerals in a vast stretch of the Pacific between Hawaii and Mexico under the jurisdiction of the 169-member-nation International Seabed Authority (ISA).
The move comes just days after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order expediting the processing of seabed mining applications under a 1980 law. TMC, the first company to seek a mining license under the 45-year-old legislation, said it expects the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to complete an initial review of its mining application within 60 days.
The region — known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) — contains some of the world’s largest estimated reserves of critical minerals for green technology in the form of polymetallic nodules, potato-sized rocks rich in copper, nickel, cobalt and manganese. Nodules, which are found by the billions at depths of 4,000 meters (13,000 feet), serve as habitat for about 50% of seabed species, most of which remain unknown to science but which researchers estimate can live hundreds or thousands of years.
TMC holds two ISA-issued exploration licenses in the region, sponsored by member states Nauru and Tonga, two tiny Pacific island nations. TMC’s U.S. license application would allow it to mine part of the CCZ assigned to Nauru. The company previously said it would seek ISA approval in June to begin mining the area even though the international body has yet to enact regulations after more than a decade of negotiations.
Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the seabed in international waters is managed by the ISA for the benefit of humanity and any mining royalties must be divided among member states. The U.S. hasn’t signed the treaty, which governs commercial use of the ocean, but has generally abided by its provisions.
“If powerful states or corporations attempt to bypass the international legal framework established by UNCLOS, they risk undermining its very foundation: preventing unilateral actions that privilege the interests of the few at the expense of the many,” the ISA said in a statement issued Saturday in response to Trump’s executive order.
During a March meeting of the ISA Council, the organization’s 36-member nation policymaking body, delegates representing China, Russia, Germany, France, South Africa, Costa Rica and other countries were unanimous in asserting that the group holds sole authority over mining in international waters. ISA Secretary-General Leticia Carvalho said mining without the organization’s approval would violate international law.
At a hearing held by the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday, TMC Chief Executive Officer Gerard Barron cast deep sea mining as a race between the US and China to secure critical minerals. “America can take the lead,” he said. “While TMC and Western explorers lead offshore technology, China is close behind, and with its dominance in land-based processing, it’s clear why deep sea mining is one of China’s core resource strategies.”
Duncan Currie, an international environmental lawyer who advises groups opposed to deep sea mining, told committee members that the U.S. may unleash a free-for-all on the high seas if nations abandon the ISA. That would risk “causing massive destruction on an unprecedented scale,” he said.
In an interview, Tom LaTourrette, a senior physical scientist at RAND, said the Trump administration’s unilateral action puts the U.S. “in dangerous waters,” raising the prospect that one company licensed by Washington and another by the ISA would attempt to mine the same patch of seabed at the same time. “It’s conceivable that ISA member states will treat U.S.-mined nodules and products as illicit,” said LaTourrette, co-author of a recent report on the geopolitics of deep sea mining.
Todd Woody, Bloomberg News
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