An abundance of marine minerals, including many critical minerals, is spread across the world’s seafloor. So far, exploration and development has happened about as fast as seafloor spreading.
Now it looks like the search for those resources might be speeding up.
Earlier this year, China entered an agreement with the Cook Islands for minerals evaluation in a resource-rich area of the Pacific Ocean. China recently restricted access to processed rare earth elements as part of its trade tussle with the United States.
India has extended a government auction of deep-sea mining blocks, including seven blocks containing polymetallic nodules, as it tries to bolster its position in critical minerals.
Both the Biden and Trump administrations introduced policies to strengthen U.S. critical-mineral supply chains. And in April, Trump ordered a probe into potential tariffs on all critical minerals imports.
At issue is U.S. reliance on China for supply. China controls more than three-quarters of the world’s processing capacity for critical minerals and around 90 percent for rare earth elements and manganese.
Canadian firm The Metals Company has announced plans to apply for seafloor minerals exploration licenses and recovery permits under U.S. law during the second quarter of this year.
“We believe we have sufficient knowledge to get started and prove we can manage environmental risks,” said Gerard Barron, TMC chairman and CEO.
“We’re encouraged by the growing recognition in Washington that (marine minerals) nodules represent a strategic opportunity for America – and we’re moving forward with urgency,” Barron said.
America’s Offshore Mineral Resources
In the United States, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management oversees the national assessment and inventory of offshore mineral resources and also administers offshore energy and mineral leasing. Megan Carr is BOEM associate director for strategic resources.
“As part of the Department of the Interior, BOEM manages the development of the energy, mineral and geological resources of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf in an environmentally and economically sustainable manner,” Carr said.
“Although a small agency, BOEM oversees nearly 3.2 billion acres of seabed, surpassing the total land area of the country,” she added.
Carr will be a speaker at the 2025 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston in a morning session on May 6, as part of OTC’s Executive Dialogue series.
“I plan to discuss how BOEM has adapted its management of our nation’s strategic resources over time as additional uses of the ocean emerge and the energy needs of the country have evolved,” Carr said.
“I’ll touch on our offshore oil and gas leasing program but will also focus the conversation on marine minerals and critical minerals, including deep sea mining, and how that fits into BOEM’s growing portfolio. I look forward to engaging discussion on these issues,” she added.
According to the BOEM, all of its U.S. offshore regions are likely to contain critical minerals:
- Alaska: Heavy minerals and crusts
- Atlantic Ocean: Heavy minerals, crusts, nodules
- Gulf Coast: Heavy minerals, brine lakes
- Pacific Coast: Phosphates, sulfides
- Remote Pacific: Nodule and crust deposits
Out of the U.S. Geological Survey’s list of 50 critical minerals, as many as 37 may occur and be accessible on the Outer Continental Shelf. Those include cobalt, lithium, nickel, germanium and titanium and more exotic rare earths like yttrium and erbium.
The federally managed area of the OCS generally extends 3 to 12 nautical miles from shore baseline, known as territorial waters, and then another 12 to 200 nautical miles in an Exclusive Economic Zone. The U.S. also claims an area of expanded continental shelf, primarily in the Arctic.
‘The Area’ Tangled in Red Tape
The International Seabed Authority administers seafloor mineral resources in the area that lies beyond national jurisdiction – called simply “the Area” – and issues regulations for deep-sea mining. Or, it’s supposed to. The ISA has been trying to promulgate final seabed mining regulations for years.
Two main barriers have impeded progress. First, deep-sea mining is environmentally controversial. Second, the ISA operates under a United Nations charter and answers to 169 members, including the European Union.
It’s this lack of results that has potential deep-sea miners throwing up their hands. And possibly, throwing in the towel.
Meanwhile, more than 30 countries and hundreds of marine scientists have called for either a moratorium on deep-sea mining or an extended further pause for additional environmental studies.
Competing Jurisdictions
Marine minerals sources include polymetallic nodules, cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts, seafloor massive sulfides, marine phosphorites and sedimentary placers. Most large-scale mining plans focus on Pacific Ocean seafloor nodules.
The world’s most abundant, known nodule deposits lie in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone between Hawaii and Mexico, an abyssal plain roughly the size of Europe. Bound by the Clarion and Clipperton fracture zones, the area also holds cobalt-rich seamounts.
According to the ISA, the CCZ could contain more than 21 billion metric tons of polymetallic nodules, with the largest mineral component about 6 billion tons of manganese.
TMC’s Barron said, “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 ISA.
“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 (the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) and the 1994 Agreement,” he said.
Some analysts see TMC’s plan as an attempted end-run around international regulation by proceeding under a U.S. law, the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act. Others call it a way to put pressure on the ISA. There’s no doubt it is a timely move, based on a growing interest in accessing critical minerals and rare earth elements.
Those minerals have become essential to producing components for cell phones and other consumer electronic devices, electric vehicles and EV batteries, solar panels, medical equipment, defense systems and much of the world’s high-tech infrastructure.
Carr said she is “participating at OTC both to share information about BOEM’s work and experience and to learn more from participants about current issues and challenges in the energy and marine minerals sectors.”
“Today, our country’s natural resources and minerals are needed more than any other time to drive our economy and improve the standard of living for so many Americans – problem solving is what we do at BOEM, and I am having the time of my life,” she said.