The Metals Company seabed licence milestone: design and ESG notes for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Undersea critical minerals explorer The Metals Company has had its USA B seabed exploration licence application formally certified by NOAA, covering about 122,000 km² of eastern Clarion Clipperton Zone seafloor with an estimated 1.02 billion tonnes of polymetallic nodules containing cobalt, nickel, copper and manganese. TMC USA’s separate consolidated application for an exploration licence and commercial recovery permit in the USA A area was ruled fully compliant on 28 April, and NOAA is now expected to issue a Notice of Intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement and draft Terms, Conditions and Restrictions. Environmental NGOs continue to push for a blanket ban on deep-sea mining, warning of irreversible biodiversity loss from industrial-scale nodule recovery.
Technical Brief
- Sequence now includes Notice of Intent, draft EIS and draft Terms, Conditions and Restrictions (TCRs).
- Draft EIS and TCRs must undergo a public comment period before any licence decision.
- Final licence issuance will depend on NOAA’s assessment of environmental impacts and proposed operational constraints.
- TMC submitted 2013–2022 exploration data to ISA’s DeepData, covering biological and geochemical sampling campaigns.
- Exploration datasets span the eastern Clarion Clipperton Zone between Mexico and Hawaii, informing baseline ecosystem characterisation.
- Environmental NGOs are pushing for a blanket halt on deep-sea mineral development, not just stricter conditions.
- TMC has begun publicly releasing Environmental Impact Assessment findings via video series to address specific impact concerns.
Our Take
The 1.02 billion tonnes of polymetallic nodules in the USA B area, combined with TMC’s existing NORI and TOML datasets submitted to DeepData (2013–2022), suggests the company is building one of the more comprehensive resource and environmental baselines in the eastern Clarion‑Clipperton Zone, which regulators like the ISA and NOAA are likely to scrutinise as a reference case.
Our database shows several recent CCZ entrants such as Deep Sea Minerals targeting similar cobalt‑ and nickel‑rich nodules, so a compliant U.S.-linked application area for The Metals Company in the Pacific Ocean could give it an early permitting and data advantage over newer juniors still assembling baseline studies.
The earlier commercial deal between TMC and Allseas to design and operate a nodule recovery system in the Clarion‑Clipperton Zone means that regulatory milestones on the USA A and USA B areas are not just permitting steps but also de‑risk the deployment pathway for that specific collection technology, which is critical for bankability of any future cobalt and battery metals offtake from these tracts.
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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