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Deep Sea Mining

[India mining] ‘Ready for next great game: Mining minerals from seas’ (Times of India – January 13, 2016)

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

Maor nations are looking to the oceans for mineral and fuel reserves as reserves on land deplete fast. The recent discovery by ONGC of a large reserve of gas hydrates -a potential gamechanger in fossil fuels -off Andhra Pradesh has shown that the Indian exclusive economic zone may well be able to secure the nation’s energy and other needs, but the technology for commercially exploiting these reserves is still several nautical miles away.

In a chat with Meera Vankipuram, Satheesh C Shenoi, director of the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad, and also director (additional charge), National Institute of Ocean Technolog y (NIOT), Chennai, explains that the process of analysing data on mineral deposits in the Indian ocean has begun.

Does India have the technology and industrial base to extract and use reserves like the gas hydrates?

Right now, we don’t have the technology to produce gas from hydrates.

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Govt set to mine mineral resources off Okinawa (Japan News – June 28, 2015)

http://the-japan-news.com/

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The Natural Resources and Energy Agency intends to conduct deep-sea test mining of minerals found on the seabed off Okinawa Island, in fiscal 2017.

The government aims to mine as much as 1,000 tons of zinc, silver and other mineral resources at a depth of about 1,600 meters in the sea off the island.

It is a world first to conduct such large-scale mining of minerals that lie under the seabed, according to the agency. A large number of mineral deposits have lately been found one after another in waters near Japan.

Currently, the Hishikari gold mine in Kagoshima Prefecture is the only domestic commercial mine in the country, the agency said.

Japan is 100 percent dependent on imports for minerals such as iron, copper and zinc, which are indispensable for the production of cars and home electrical appliances.

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Strip-mining the Ocean Floor: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? – by Miyoko Sakashita (Huffington Post – May 14, 2015)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/green/

Miyoko Sakashita is the Oceans Director, Center for Biological Diversity.

Have you heard about the disastrous gold rush brewing in our oceans? Not content with getting minerals from dry land, companies are now aiming to strip mine our ocean floors in search of nickel, copper, cobalt, gold and other valuable metals and minerals. Many of them would end up in our electronics.

But there’s a heavy price to be paid: Like mountain-top removal mining, deep-sea mining involves massive cutting machines that will leave behind barren, underwater landscapes — some of the richest and most pristine ecosystems left on the planet.

This week, the Center for Biological Diversity (where I work) took the first steps in slowing down this deep sea gold rush by filing a lawsuit challenging the permits that the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued to a Lockheed Martin subsidiary to mine the mineral-rich Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Hawaii and Mexico.

While there’s much that we still don’t understand about life on the deep sea floor, we do know that the Clarion-Clipperton Zone is teeming with wildlife, including sperm whales, spinner dolphins, loggerhead sea turtles, great hammerhead sharks and a vast array of fish, corals, snails and sponges.

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Commentary: Seabed Mining: Long on Promises, Short on Delivery – by Stuart Burns (Metal Miner – February 26, 2015)

http://agmetalminer.com/

If you think miners or developers on land struggle with environmental legislators, spare a thought for those looking to develop resources under the ocean via seabed mining.

The International Seabed Authority, a UN agency, has so far issued 26 exploration licenses to governments and companies enabling them to operate in international waters but none of them have reached commercial realization. Even in national waters governments are coming down on the side of the environmental lobby when new applications are being put forward.

After leading the way in supporting early proposals, the New Zealand environmental regulators have recently turned down an application from an ocean mining firm Chatham Rock to develop a site off the coast, some 450 kilometers southeast of Wellington, the FT reports.

The site in question is said to be rich in phosphate, used in fertilizer manufacturing, and said to hold enough to meet 25 years of New Zealand’s current consumption. Chatham Rock have invested $33 million over seven years researching the environmental impact and developing the extraction processes.

It is not hyperbole to say the ocean floor is the last great mineral reserve on the planet.

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[Japan] Govt aims to commercialize seafloor mining in 2020s (The Japan News – February 22, 2015)

http://the-japan-news.com/

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The government is aiming to commercialize the mining of rich seafloor deposits around Japan of such mineral resources as copper in the 2020s, according to officials.

The nation has relied on imports to meet demand for mineral resources like copper, lead, gold and silver since many domestic mines were shut down by the end of the 1970s. Mining these resource-abundant seafloor deposits could help shake off Japan’s reputation as a nation with few resources.

At a press conference at the end of January, Tetsuro Urabe, a professor emeritus of the University of Tokyo, could hardly conceal his excitement. He was announcing the discovery of a deposit about 1,400 meters below the ocean surface off Okinawa Prefecture’s Kumejima island.

“The minerals there are of a quality I’ve never seen before,” Urabe said. “One could say this discovery is astonishing.”

The research was conducted by Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) using a remote-controlled vehicle, which retrieved six samples of ore with copper concentrations 15 to 30 times higher than those mined in South America.

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Deep sea mining hopes hit by New Zealand decision – by Jamie Smyth (Financial Times – February 22, 2015)

http://www.ft.com/intl/companies/mining

Sydney – A decision to block a deep sea mining venture off the New Zealand coast has cast a shadow over an emerging global industry that proponents say could revolutionise how minerals are extracted.

The sea floor is rich in copper, nickel, manganese, cobalt, zinc and a host of other minerals used in technology products. Improvements in undersea extraction technology have now put these within reach of miners.

New Zealand has lead the way in developing sea floor mining. But progress has now stalled following this month’s rejection by environmental regulators of a proposed project by Chatham Rock Phosphate off the coast of Canterbury, the second mine application refused within a year.

The decisions were welcomed by green groups, who fret that mining would damage vulnerable undersea ecosystems, which are relatively underexplored. But their delight is not shared by companies eyeing deep sea prospects.

“To say we are bitterly disappointed is an understatement,” said Chris Castle, Chatham Rock Phosphate’s managing director. “This will make it even harder, if not impossible for companies to attract capital for new projects in New Zealand.”

For almost 20 years deep sea mining has been flagged as a commercial opportunity. David Cameron, UK prime minister, claims it could be worth £40bn to the UK over a 30-year period.

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