Norway will not issue, as originally planned, licenses for deep-water mining in its territorial waters in 2025, a party allied to the center-left government said on Sunday, after coalition parties concluded talks on next year’s budget. .

“We are stopping plans for seabed mining,” Kirsty Bergstoe, leader of the left-green SV party, told reporters.

Until now, Norway, whose vast hydrocarbon reserves made it one of the world’s richest countries, had led the global race to mine the ocean floor for metals that are in high demand as countries move away from fossil fuels.

“This is a critical victory in the fight against deep-sea mining. It should be the scapegoat for the destructive industry,” Frode Pleim, head of Greenpeace’s Norwegian branch, told Reuters.

Oslo had plans to open up large areas of its Arctic next year to the inaugural round of seabed licensing, aiming to grant exploration permits in the first half of 2025, despite objections from environmental activists at home and abroad.

The deal struck by the government and SV today means the planned licensing round will not go ahead.