How a giant mining company gained power over underwater treasures

A remote area of ​​the seafloor, four kilometers below the surface of the Pacific Ocean and 2,400 kilometers off the coast of California, could soon become the world’s first industrial-scale mining site in international waters. There is one of the richest sources of metals needed to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles.

Exclusive access to tons of seafloor rock filled with cobalt, copper and nickel was obtained by Metals Co., based in Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada). The company calculates that the reserves are enough to supply 280 million electric vehicles and generate US$ 31 billion (R$ 156.8 billion) over the 25-year life of the project.

The venture, however, raised doubts about the agency’s actions, which should regulate the exploration of the seabed, raised questions about who profits from these resources and generated criticism from environmentalists.

Metals are sucked up by giant underwater vacuum cleaner

The metals are found in potato-sized rocks known as polymetallic nodules, and the company sucks them up from the ocean floor with a giant undersea vacuum and transports them to shore.

Perhaps the most prominent opponent is Craig Smith, an oceanographer and former mining industry contractor now at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His research highlighted the potential mining region as something worth preserving.

“It’s just not possible to do that without essentially destroying one of the largest natural areas that remain,” Smith said, citing the potential impact of 17 mining projects in the area.

Smith was commissioned to assess the environmental effects of seafloor mining by the South Korean government and US contractor Lockheed Martin, who are considering projects.

Governments in Britain and Germany have also questioned the project and the damage that some scientists fear large-scale mining of the seafloor could cause.

“Never has mining on this scale been done on the planet,” said James AR McFarlane, former head of environmental monitoring at the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the UN-affiliated agency that will regulate Metals Co.

The company denies that there are any environmental risks. According to her, mining would be for the “benefit of humanity”, as required by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which created the ISA, and would cause less ecological damage than open pit mining.

Gerard Barron, CEO of Metals Co., said his project is important for the future health of the planet: “This is perhaps one of those projects that can really make a difference.”

Company obtained data before poorer countries, which would have primacy

Another problem pointed out is that ISA favors Metals Co. Interviews and hundreds of internal documents obtained by the New York Times show that the company received data identifying some of the most valuable stretches of the seabed. The agency then reserved these locations for the company’s future use, according to the investigation.

Although by rules developing countries should have access to mining data before companies, a senior executive at Metals Co. obtained data first and then secured two small island nations, Nauru and Tonga, as sponsors—the company maintained near-complete financial control of the project, including rights to nearly all anticipated profits.

Nauru, with only 11,000 inhabitants, did not demand much in exchange for sponsorship, not having the capacity to carry out such an undertaking. Barron did not say how much money Nauru should receive.

A community leader in Tonga said the company had agreed to pay $2 a ton as a “mining production fee”. This payment would amount to less than half of 1% of the company’s estimated total value of the extracted material. The Metals Co. did not confirm this rate.

ISA has allocated around 518,000 km² of seabed for developing countries to do exploration work, but nearly half of that space is now under the control of Metals Co.

Law firm Withers Bergman, hired by the ISA, said in a statement that “the ISA did not, at any time, share confidential data improperly or illegally.”