Latest news with #SeabedAuthority
Newsweek
25-04-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
Trump Order Encourages Controversial Deep-Sea Mining for Critical Minerals
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday to promote mining of the deep-sea floor, a controversial way to get critical minerals that are used in a wide range of electronics and other products. "Our nation must take immediate action to accelerate the responsible development of seabed mineral resources," the order states. Terrestrial mines and the processing facilities for many critical minerals are dominated by China, and the Trump administration is eager to develop alternatives. Large swathes of the deep-sea floor contain nodules of the critical minerals cobalt, copper, manganese and nickel. "This is an exciting opportunity for the U.S.," Gerard Baron, CEO of The Metals Company, told Newsweek. "It's an amazing way of catching up from what is a very distant second place to China when it comes to critical minerals." Deep-sea mining equipment being deployed by The Metals Company during a test expedition. The company hopes to extract nodules of critical minerals from the seabed. Deep-sea mining equipment being deployed by The Metals Company during a test expedition. The company hopes to extract nodules of critical minerals from the seabed. Richard Baron/Courtesy of The Metals Company The Canada-based company is seeking U.S. permits to mine the sea floor after expressing frustration with an international process on mining. A United Nations body, the International Seabed Authority, has been debating a set of standards for deep-sea mining intended to minimize harm to marine environments. Brazilian oceanographer Leticia Carvalho has been Secretary General of the Seabed Authority since January. At a Washington D.C. conference on critical minerals this month, Carvalho emphasized that her organization is the only body legally authorized to regulate activity beyond national boundaries and that there was clear agreement among partner nations. "No exploitation may commence until a regulatory framework is in place," she said. Baron said his company has spent millions of dollars on environmental assessments of their mining but has not seen progress on mining standards from the Seabed Authority. "The system has been overtaken by environmental activists," Baron complained. The U.S. has never ratified the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, and legislation from the 1990s established a national permitting framework for seabed mining. Trump's order calls on U.S. agencies to expedite seabed mineral permits "in areas beyond national jurisdiction," essentially ignoring the international process and mining unilaterally. A deep-sea crab observed during an expedition using equipment from Victor Vescovo's company. A deep-sea crab observed during an expedition using equipment from Victor Vescovo's company. Courtesy of Caladan Oceanic and the University of Western Australia The order drew immediate condemnation from ocean conservation groups who say deep sea mining risks a fragile and barely explored environment. "Areas of the U.S. seafloor where test mining took place over 50 years ago still haven't fully recovered," Jeff Watters, Ocean Conservancy's vice president for external affairs, said in a statement. "The harm caused by deep-sea mining isn't restricted to the ocean floor: it will impact the entire water column, top to bottom, and everyone and everything relying on it." Duncan Currie, international legal advisor to the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, which represents more than 100 groups, warned that unilaterally mining in international waters would risk upsetting other fragile agreements on shipping and fishing on the high seas. "To be taking a bulldozer through the Law of the Sea Convention would really be treated with enormous alarm by any country that has a need to rely on the ocean," Currie told Newsweek. Currie also questioned the economic rationale for seafloor mining. "It's a very shallow analysis of the issue," he said. The main bottleneck to critical mineral supplies, he said, is the lack of a refining and processing infrastructure for the minerals, and pulling rocks from the depths will not change that. Victor Vescovo, CEO of the investment company Caledon Capital, is a deep ocean explorer and one of the very few people to have visited the Challenger Deep, the deepest spot on Earth. Vescovo said he has deep doubts about the mining companies' claims about their ability to operate profitably under such difficult conditions. "I've operated heavy equipment below 4000 meters as much as anyone, and they are completely underestimating the absolute hellish and brutal nature of operating at those depths," Vescovo told Newsweek. "It's deeper than the Titanic. Nothing could be harder, except maybe going into space." Deep-sea organisms often make use of mineral nodules to anchor themselves on the sea floor. Ocean conservation groups argue that mining the deep sea puts the environment at risk. Deep-sea organisms often make use of mineral nodules to anchor themselves on the sea floor. Ocean conservation groups argue that mining the deep sea puts the environment at risk. Courtesy of Caladan Oceanic and the University of Western Australia Minerals extracted from the seabed would not make a significant difference in the global supply, he argued, and many of the crucial rare earth minerals in shortest supply are not found in the deep-sea nodules. "They treat deep sea mining as a cornucopia of critical metals, like it's the solution to all of our metals problems," he said. "It is nothing of the kind." Vescovo said deep sea expeditions frequently find previously unknown species, many with unique biochemistry and other properties that could yield important scientific and medical breakthroughs. Mining not only produces deep scars on the sea floor and a plume of sediment in the water column, he said, it also removes the hard substrate that many organisms need as an anchor on the abyssal plain. Baron, of The Metals Company, countered that damage from mining the sea floor must be balanced against the impacts of terrestrial mining. New mining and processing of nickel, for example, is now largely taking place in Indonesian rainforests, where it has become a leading cause of deforestation. "We should carry out extractive industry in parts of the planet where there is the least life," Baron said, "not the most life."
New York Times
30-03-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Trump-Era Pivot on Seabed Mining Draws Global Rebuke
Nearly 40 nations, big and small, have voiced opposition to a plan by a Wall Street-backed mining company to team up with the Trump administration to circumvent international law and start seabed mining in the Pacific Ocean with a U.S. permit. The widespread furor reflected a rare alignment from countries as varied as China, Russia, India, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Indonesia, France, Argentina, Uganda and the small island nations of Mauritius and Fiji. The plan also brought to the fore a pitched clash over who regulates seabed mining in international waters. The pushback emerged after The Metals Company, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, disclosed on Thursday that it would ask the Trump administration through a United States subsidiary to grant it approval for mining in international waters. Under an international treaty, the International Seabed Authority has jurisdiction over any mining on the so-called high seas. 'Any unilateral action would constitute a violation of international law and directly undermine the fundamental principles of multilateralism, the peaceful use of the oceans and the collective governance framework,' Leticia Carvalho, the secretary general of the seabed authority, said in a statement released Friday. Diplomats backed up Ms. Carvalho, arguing that the surprise proposal threatened a global effort to share in the wealth from any metals buried on the seabed floor, which are expected to be used to build electric car batteries and other industrial products. 'It is the Authority that has the exclusive mandate to regulate the exploration and exploitation of mineral resources in the area,' said Carl Grainger, Ireland's representative. The Metals Company turned to the Trump administration after growing increasingly frustrated with how long it has taken the Seabed Authority to complete environmental and financial regulations that will govern seabed mining. The agency has said that those standards are needed before issuing its first commercial mining permit. Gerard Barron, the company's chairman, said that he wanted to start mining in international waters as soon as 2027 and that he was convinced the United States had the legal right to issue a permit on its own. 'The freedom to mine the deep seabed, like the freedom of navigation, is a high seas freedom enjoyed by all nations,' Mr. Barron said. The Trump administration's Commerce Department, in a statement to The New York Times late Friday, confirmed that it disagreed with the Seabed Authority's interpretation of international law. 'Companies can apply for exploration licenses and commercial recovery permits for deep-sea mining in ocean areas beyond national jurisdiction,' Maureen O'Leary, a department spokeswoman said, citing a 1980 federal law, the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act. It has never previously been used to authorize industrial-scale ocean mining. Ms. O'Leary added that the U.S. subsidiary of The Metals Company had started consulting with the Commerce Department over deep-sea mining plans. 'The process ensures a thorough environmental impact review, interagency consultations and opportunity for public comment,' Ms. O'Leary said, suggesting that the permit approval would not be automatic. Each nation already controls its own coastal areas, which are considered to reach about 200 nautical miles from the shore, and certain countries such as Japan, Norway and the Cook Islands have recently considered allowing seabed mining in these national areas. But the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which went into effect in 1994, established the International Seabed Authority and granted it the power to decide when and where seabed mining can take place in international waters, which cover nearly half the world's surface. In the decades since, more than two dozen contracts have been granted by the agency for exploratory work, extracting small quantities of seabed rocks from the ocean floor, including to the Metals Company, which teamed up with the small island nations of Nauru and Tonga. The company's contract sites are about 1,000 miles off the coast of Mexico, where the ocean is about 2.5 miles deep, in a region known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. There the seabed floor is sprinkled with potato-size rocks that have large quantities of nickel, manganese, copper, zinc, cobalt and other minerals. The Metals Company has already spent hundreds of millions of dollars doing exploratory work. But it has become clear that the rules will not be ready for at least several more years, and the company is running low on cash and even available borrowing authority. 'We believe we have sufficient knowledge to get started and prove we can manage environmental risks,' Mr. Barron said, adding that the company planned to ask the United States to approve mining in these same areas. The Law of the Sea has been ratified by more than 165 nations, but one major exception is the United States. Dating back to the Reagan administration, there were concerns related to seabed mining provisions and how they might limit mining by American companies. But the United States successfully negotiated changes to the treaty in the 1990s to try to address these concerns. In the decades since, the State Department has sent representatives to meetings at the Seabed Authority's headquarters in Kingston, Jamaica, creating the impression that the United States intends to honor the terms of the treaty, even though the Senate never formally ratified it. President Trump has already shown a willingness to challenge international norms. He has proposed that the United States take over Greenland or even Canada to increase access to critical minerals needed to fuel manufacturing in the United States, and perhaps even the Panama Canal to more cheaply move American manufactured goods. The Metals Company executives have confidentially been meeting with Trump White House and Commerce Department officials to prepare this plan. Mr. Barron, in an interview and statement he prepared for The Times, said he believed that the Seabed Authority has been constrained by environmental groups like Greenpeace. Such organizations, he said, 'see deep-sea mining industry as their 'last green trophy' and have worked tirelessly to continuously delay the adoption of the exploitation regulations with the explicit intent of killing commercial industry.' He also argued that the authority's delay in finishing the seabed mining rules had violated the terms of the international agreement. Such arguments have not been well received by the Seabed Authority and its member states: More than 30 nations have argued that there still is not enough evidence that seabed mining can take place without causing unacceptable harm to the environment. Even nations like China, India, Poland and Norway — which have been more supportive of moving more quickly to start industrial-scale mining in international waters — have joined to object to the proposal by The Metals Company. A license granted by the Trump administration to The Metals Company could give the company a head start on these nations, potentially flooding the marketplace with metals like nickel and copper and undermining plans by these other nations to mine the ocean on their own. 'At this critical moment in history, it is more important for us to be united in continuing to demonstrate the effectiveness and vitality of the seabed regime,' a Chinese government official said in a statement read at a Seabed Authority meeting on Friday.
New York Times
28-03-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Mining Company Seeks Trump Support to Shortcut Access to Seabed Metals
The long-running battle over whether to allow Pacific Ocean seabed mining took an unexpected turn Thursday when a company disclosed it had been confidentially negotiating a plan with the Trump administration to circumvent a United Nations treaty and perhaps obtain authorization from the United States to start mining in international waters. The proposal, which drew immediate protests from environmental groups and diplomats from some countries, represents a radical shift in the contentious debate over accessing deposits on the sea floor that contain copper, cobalt, manganese and other metals that are needed for electric-car batteries. The International Seabed Authority, established 30 years ago by an agreement now ratified by more than 160 nations, has jurisdiction over seabed mining in international waters, outside the coastal areas of each nation. The Seabed Authority has been slowly crafting regulations governing mining, which remains highly contentious because the potential effects of industrial activity on marine life are unknown. Now the Trump administration, which has already expressed its desire to retake the Panama Canal and assume control of Greenland, is being nudged by the Vancouver-based Metals Company to disregard the Seabed Authority and grant it a license to start mining as soon as 2027. Gerard Barron, the chief executive at the Metals Company, announced the maneuver Thursday after it became clear that it could still be years before the Seabed Authority finalizes mining regulations. Contractors from nations including China, India, South Korea, Japan and Poland are also doing exploratory work in international waters under permits from the Seabed Authority, but none of them have been given permission to start large scale mining. The Metals Company's application would come in the next several months from a United States-based subsidiary of the company, and it would use a ship registered in the United States. The company would send a giant vacuum-cleaner-like machine 2.5 miles underwater to the ocean floor to suck up potato-size rocks that are loaded with metals. Mr. Barron said executives had already met with Trump administration officials to promote their plan, which would also require a permit from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 'The United States has had the legal framework and regulations for issuing exploration licenses and commercial recovery permits for deep seabed minerals in international waters,' Mr. Barron said Thursday. 'Now there is political will to put existing authorities to use.' Reached Thursday evening, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said he could not say if the Trump administration would agree to the Metals Company's proposal and referred a reporter to his staff. Agency officials did not respond to requests for comment. The Metals Company, which is publicly traded, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on exploratory work in the Pacific Ocean, in an area known as the Clarion Clipperton Zone, a remote spot between Mexico and Hawaii. Its most recent annual report, released Thursday, shows it is nearly out of cash and borrowing authority, leaving it with just $43 million in reserves. 'We're moving forward with urgency,' the company said. In January, Leticia Carvalho, a Brazilian oceanographer who is skeptical of seabed mining, became secretary general of the Seabed Authority, suggesting that the final regulations could be delayed even longer. More than 160 nations have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which created the International Seabed Authority and granted it the right to decide where and how seabed mining might take place. But the United States has never signed the treaty. And that has prompted the Metals Company to lobby the Trump administration and members of Congress, arguing that the United States is free to move ahead with mining in international waters, since it is not a party to the treaty. Drafts are now circulating of an executive order President Trump will be asked to sign that would direct his administration to go ahead with this plan, according to two people involved in the discussion who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the draft document. The Trump administration has indicated it wants to secure greater access to so-called critical minerals, needed for manufacturing in the United States, even if it means making new international claims. At his confirmation hearing, Mr. Lutnick expressed general support for seabed mining, although he did not say if the United States would defy the Seabed Authority. 'It is important for American national security that the key rare-earth minerals, we create ourselves,' Mr. Lutnick said at his confirmation hearing. 'Fortunately we have the greatest land in the world, and under our seas is the rest of whatever we don't have on land. We need to harvest it, we need to understand it, and we need to take care of America. We can.' A briefing document produced by the Metals Company and obtained by The New York Times, noted that before Mr. Lutnick was commerce secretary, he was the chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial firm that was the company's lead banker. The Metals Company also noted that its plans had 'strong support from influential members of the Republican controlled Congress.' But even the idea that the United States might be considering such a move provoked outrage from environmentalists and some nations. At least 30 nations, from Austria to New Zealand, have called for a delay in the start of seabed mining, arguing that not enough is known about whether it would cause widespread harm to aquatic life and the environment. 'It is a desperate but pretty dangerous act,' said Louisa Casson, an organizer from Greenpeace International, an environmental group that has been trying to block seabed mining. 'This could be a negotiating tactic to try to strong-arm the Seabed Authority.' Mr. Barron pointed to extensive research funded by his company that found that seabed mining had less impact on the environment than open-pit or underground mining. More than a dozen diplomats who represent their nations before the Seabed Authority — which is in the middle of a work session in Kingston, Jamaica — were expected to meet Friday to decide how to respond to the plans from the mining company. 'This seems a totally improper move by the Metals Company,' said Georgina Maria Guillen Grillo, a representative from Costa Rica, which has worked to slow the start of seabed mining until the environmental and financial regulations are adopted. 'They have been pushing us to work on regulations when they do not seem to really care about complying with legal obligations under the international law.'
