Canada’s The Metals Company (NASDAQ: TMC) plans to be ready to apply for a licence to start mining the seabed before the end of this year, with production expected to start at the end of the first quarter of 2026.
TMC, a deep-sea mining pioneer, has long said it would submit its application after the United Nations’ International Seabed Authority (ISA) current meeting, which ends on July 26.
Gathered in Kingston, Jamaica, the 36-member ISA council is negotiating the latest draft of the anticipated seabed mining rules.
“We’ve told the market that we would lodge (our application) after the July (ISA) session [and] we see no reason to change that,” chief executive Gerard Barron told Reuters.
“From our perspective, what we’re looking for out of the current session is continual movement towards finalizing the regulations,” Barron told the news agency.
The ISA is currently meeting in Kingston, Jamaica to negotiate a draft “mining code” that will regulate the activity. The council has been reviewing the 225-page document produced in February and making adjustments as they proceed, TMC told reporters last week in a market briefing.
“We’ve told the market that we would lodge (our application) after the July (ISA) session [and] we see no reason to change that”
TMC chief executive Gerard Barron
The Vancouver-headquartered firm also said in the online update that based on feedback received from ISA and stakeholders in 2023, they are running new environmental tests in the area they plan to mine.
Barron’s comments to Reuters are in contrast to what the TMC told attendees last week. The company said then it would not rush a submission for a mining licence, as the results of tests have not come back yet.
These conclusions would be key to finish the Environmental Impact Study (EIS) and Environmental Monitoring and Management Plan (EMMP) TMC is currently working on.
“We will do it once and we will do it right,” company representatives said about applying for a mining permit, adding that TMC may not submit the application now after all.
After submission, the permit request will undergo a review process that is anticipated to last for one year.
TMC has been actively carrying out exploratory mining expeditions to the mineral-rich Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) – a vast area between Hawaii and Mexico, where polymetallic nodules the size of potatoes were discovered more than 120 years ago.
The company will scoop up those nodules in a process they say is less damaging than land-based mining.
A study published this week may throw a new wrench into TMC and other companies’ plans. Experts found metallic nodules produce “dark oxygen” — oxygen generated without using sunlight, as it is on the Earth’s surface via photosynthesis — and warned that extracting these nodules could negatively affect the seafloor ecosystem.
The paper follows a formal complaint filed this week against TMC by three civil society groups with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Deep Sea Mining Campaign (DSMC), The Ocean Foundation (TOF) and Blue Climate Initiative (BCI) allege the company has significantly mislead investors, government officials and the public through material misrepresentations and omissions.
Comments
Karen Holmes
The Earth is a closed ecosystem and what affects one part affects it all. The environment must be under the auspices of an international body with the authority and power to keep the environment in its pristine condition. The UN Charter has five main flaws. It doesn’t treat all nations equally. The power a nation has is based on behavior rather than unalienable rights. A nation may not have a voice in matters of grave concern, and then doesn’t have recourse to change what is unfair. A nation doesn’t have to be a signatory of the international courts so disputes between nations are not resolved.
Undersea mining must be put on hold until the issues can be resolved in such a way that the environment is protected. What seems like a solution to climate change, and therefore logically should be accepted, can actually make climate change worse. The oceans function as batteries to store the energy of the sun, and when you remove the electrolytes from a battery and continue to pump into it energy, the battery gets hot.
Our organization is calling for technology review of all new technologies, including cultural review, before new technologies are allowed to move forward.