The industry has already suffered a false start.
Norway's parliament had voted massively in favour of deep-sea mining, experts had concludedlunar there were significant resources to be extracted, and start-ups drawing on more than 50 years of offshore oil and gas experience were keen to begin operations.
But then came a surprising turn of events.
In December, Norway's government backpedalled on plans to award the first exploration licences in 2025, part of a compromise with a left-wing party in order to pass its budget through parliament.
"It was of course a surprise and disappointment... that a small party could take over the budget negotiations and succeed in blocking something that parliament really wants," said Anette Broch Mathisen Tvedt, managing director of the start-up Adepth.
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store insisted it was simply a delay, not a change of heart.
The first licences are now due to be awarded in 2026, in the Greenland Sea and the Norwegian Sea.
But the change of timeline had major repercussions for industry players, usually small companies made up of an entrepreneur and a handful of geologists or geophysicists.
Loke Marine Minerals, which had hopes of becoming a world leader, declared bankruptcy last week. Its rival, Green Minerals, has had to cut costs by 80 percent.
"We are as ready now as before to be awarded licences on the Norwegian continental shelf. We will be around for many years," Green Minerals chief executive Oivind Dahl-Stamnes insisted.
Those in favour see deep-sea mining as a way of obtaining minerals and metals needed for the transition to green energy, and reducing dependence on China, which dominates the market by a big margin.
"If we continue to have minerals supplied the way they are today, then it's clear that the green transition will not be very green," Mathisen Tvedt argued.
Norway stands out in Europe, where countries like France, Germany and Britain are reticent or even categorically opposed to deep-sea mining.
Norway's seabed is believed to hold "substantial" resources, including 38 million tonnes of copper and 45 million tonnes of zinc, as well as "significant" volumes of rare earth minerals, according to an official evaluation published in 2023.
- Clearing the way -
At a conference in early April in the Norwegian city of Bergen, AFP met industry players who said they hoped to extract their first minerals in the early 2030s or even by the end of this decade.
Their plans have environmentalists up in arms, concerned about the impact their operations will have on marine ecosystems in the region, about which much is still unknown.
In Bergen, delegates were met by Greenpeace leaflets with the plea "Don't gamble with the ocean!"
"Deep sea mining is a destructive industry that will destroy valuable and mostly unexplored ecosystems for minerals that we don't need for the green transition," argued Helene Bourges, global project leader at Greenpeace International.
Egil Tjaland, the secretary general of the Norwegian Forum for Marine Minerals, insisted Norway was well positioned to develop the sector.
"It's better to have a nation like Norway, with a good environmental record, start this and hopefully make a standard that can be used for other countries," he said.
"Because I think inevitably this will happen all over the world... It's just a matter of time."
Environmental activists have lost the first round in the courts.
An Oslo court in February rejected a legal challenge by the conservation organisation WWF, which accused the state of opening up Norway's seabed to deep-sea mining without conducting sufficient impact studies.
WWF has appealed against the ruling.
"All industrial activity has an impact. When it comes to minerals, the question is: 'where is the impact smallest?" argued Dahl-Stamnes of Green Minerals.
"Is it smallest at a depth of 1,000 to 2,000 metres (3,300 to 6,600 feet) under the seabed, or in the traditional mining industry on land?" he asked rhetorically.
Key facts on deep-sea mining
Bergen, Norway (AFP) April 10, 2025 -
Supporters see deep-sea mining as a boon for the green energy transition, while opponents see it as an irresponsible gamble.
It is not yet a commercial reality, but that could change in 2025.
Here are some key things to know about deep-sea mining:
- What resources lie on the ocean floor? -
The seabed is home to three types of metal deposits that have taken thousands or even millions of years to develop.
-- Polymetallic nodules are potato-sized pebbles that result from the very slow precipitation of minerals around fragments such as shark teeth or fish ear bones.
Found at depths of 4,000 to 6,000 metres (13,000 to 20,000 feet), particularly in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico, these nodules contain mainly manganese, iron, cobalt, copper and nickel.
-- Cobalt crusts are rocky masses found at depths of 400 to 4,000 metres, formed by the accumulation of metals contained in seawater. They have to be laboriously separated and removed from the underlying rocks, with one area explored in the northwestern Pacific. They contain manganese, iron, cobalt, and platinum.
-- Sulfide deposits or polymetallic sulfides are metal-rich deposits (containing copper, zinc, gold, silver) around chimneys from which water enriched with dissolved metals is expelled. These clusters are found at depths of between 800 and 5,000 metres, at ridges or near submarine volcanoes in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
- Why mine them? -
Cobalt and nickel are essential elements used in electric car batteries. They are currently extracted from minerals mined on land at great human and environmental expense, in addition to the substantial and toxic waste from the chemicals-based refining process.
Electric cables are made of copper and demand is expected to skyrocket in line with electrification in the 21st century.
Supporters of deep-sea mining argue that collecting nodules on the Pacific floor does not mean razing or reducing the seabed's rocks and mountains to dust, as is done at mines on land.
- The environmental cost? -
Little is known about deep-sea environments, which play a role in storing carbon and have long been free from human activity.
Scientists and environmentalists fear that mining activities risk disturbing or destroying marine ecosystems about which very little is known.
According to the international scientists' initiative Ocean Census, only 250,000 species, out of the two million believed to populate the oceans, have been identified.
Mining activities could destroy the habitats of organisms living on or near the seabed; alter the water's local chemistry; cause noise and light pollution; or result in chemical leaks from machinery and equipment, Greenpeace fears.
32 states, including Brazil, Britain, Canada, Germany and Mexico, have called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining in international waters, according to the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition.
- Current state of play? -
No commercial production licence has been issued anywhere in the world for deep-sea mining, though some countries have launched or are preparing to launch exploration in their exclusive economic zones (within 200 nautical miles, or 370 kilometres, of their coastlines).
The only industrial technology developed so far is that to retrieve nodules.
Japan has two exploration contracts, while the Cook Islands has awarded exploration licences to three companies in their waters and is also cooperating with China.
In Europe, Norway had planned to award exploration licences for deep-sea mining in 2025, a move delayed until 2026 as part of a political compromise.
In international waters, it is the International Seabed Authority (ISA) that authorises deep-sea mining. It has awarded exploration licences to several companies and countries to test their technologies, but none so far for actual mining.
Torn between proponents of mining and advocates of a moratorium, the ISA is struggling to produce a "mining code" that has been under negotiation since 2014.
Canada's The Metals Company lost patience and said this year it would skirt the ISA and turn to the United States -- not members of the organisation -- to begin mining in international waters.
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