Glomar Minerals deep-sea push: Project Infinity schedule and design notes for engineers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Glomar Minerals has sent its UK Seabed Resources vessel RV Tangaroa on a 67‑day campaign to the Clarion‑Clipperton Zone, surveying two UK‑sponsored licence areas totalling about 133,000 sq. km for polymetallic nodules rich in manganese, cobalt, nickel, copper and rare earths. CEO Chris Williams is targeting first processing of nodules before the end of Donald Trump’s current term via Project Infinity, a modular US refinery with Cobalt Blue designed for 200,000 tonnes of nodules and 7,500 tonnes of terrestrial cobalt hydroxide per year. The company is actively exploring regulatory pathways outside the ISA and positioning for staged scale‑up from a sub‑full‑vessel operation.
Technical Brief
- UK Seabed Resources’ two UK-sponsored CCZ exploration contracts cover ~133,000 sq. km of seabed.
- Current Tangaroa expedition totals 67 days, with 45 days dedicated to active survey operations.
- UK2 licence is undergoing its first comprehensive geological and biological survey in over 40 years.
- Historical US datasets indicate UK2 may host a stronger nodule resource, but remains less advanced than UK1.
- UK1 licence area is considered close to being ready for an ISA exploitation contract application.
- Project Infinity’s modular US refinery is planned to treat 200,000 t/y nodules plus 7,500 t/y cobalt hydroxide.
- Refinery throughput is sized at roughly one‑tenth of a full‑size continuous collection vessel’s output.
- Four shortlisted refinery sites span Louisiana, North Carolina and Texas, selected from more than 30 candidates.
- Glomar acquired UKSR from Loke Marine Minerals’ bankruptcy estate in 2025; Lockheed Martin sold UKSR to Loke in 2023.
- Environmental baseline and impact data from Glomar campaigns are intended for peer‑reviewed publication with open access where possible.
Our Take
Glomar Minerals’ work in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone with UKSR links directly to the 75‑day UK2 expedition already in our coverage, suggesting this current push towards production is building on a relatively advanced baseline of geological and biological data rather than a greenfield deep-sea play.
The consortium agreement between Glomar Minerals and Cobalt Blue to deploy Australian cobalt-processing technology in the United States indicates that any CCZ cobalt or nickel feed could be paired with a domestically controlled refining route, which is strategically aligned with the Trump-era critical minerals push against Chinese processing dominance.
The conditional US$150 million Department of War commitment to Niron Magnetics, alongside Glomar’s critical minerals ambitions, signals that US defence-linked funding is increasingly backing upstream and midstream supply for rare earths and magnet materials, which could give projects tied to the US, UK and Norway (such as UKSR and Loke Marine Minerals) a financing edge over Pacific-only operators.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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