- The Metals Company (TMC) has submitted its first application to commercially exploit seabed minerals in international waters, along with applications for two exploration licenses, under the U.S. regulatory authority.
- The contentious move follows a recent executive order from the Trump administration that directed the U.S. government to fast-track deep-sea mining in an effort to secure supplies of critical minerals for the U.S.
- Both TMC and the U.S. have faced international pushback over these plans, with both the U.N.-affiliated International Seabed Authority (ISA) and China criticizing them as potentially violating international law because only the ISA has the authority to permit mining in international waters.
- While the U.S. regulator and TMC say they will manage environmental risks, critics say deep-sea mining could cause significant and potentially irreversible damage to marine ecosystems.
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network, where Elizabeth Claire Alberts is a fellow.
Mere days after the Trump administration rolled out a controversial executive order directing the U.S. government to expedite the launch of deep-sea mining, The Metals Company (TMC) announced that it had applied for a license to mine the deep seabed. If approved, the Canadian firm, which is listed on the Nasdaq in New York, could become the first deep-sea mining company to obtain a license to exploit minerals in international waters. It would also be the first to do so under the self-declared authority of the U.S. Many experts say the move could not only violate international law, but also inflict immense, potentially irreversible damage on marine ecosystems.
In a statement released April 29, the company said its newly rebranded U.S. subsidiary, The Metals Company USA LLC (TMC USA), had submitted applications for a commercial recovery permit — in other words, an exploitation license — along with two exploration licenses. These applications fall under the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (DSHMRA), a law Congress originally established in 1980, authorizing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a scientific and regulatory agency of the U.S. government, to issue mining permits under it.
According to TMC, its mining application focuses on a 25,160-square-kilometer (9,714-square-mile) area of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, that it refers to as “TMC USA-A_2.” The company said that this specific area includes parts where it has already “indicated and measured resources,” likely meaning that the area overlaps with one of TMC’s existing license areas obtained via the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the U.N.-mandated body that regulates deep-sea mining in international waters. TMC currently holds two exploratory licenses via the ISA, covering 150,000 km2 (about 60,000 mi2) in the CCZ. The company planned to focus its initial mining operations on a 25,000-km2 (9,650-mi2) site called NORI-D in one of its license areas, targeting potato-shaped rocks called polymetallic nodules, which are rich in minerals like manganese, nickel, copper, and cobalt.
The company said its submission accelerates its original timeline, moving ahead of its previously stated goal to file a mining application with the ISA by June 27, 2025.
TMC did not respond to Mongabay’s questions about whether the proposed USA-A_2 area overlaps with NORI-D, or if it still intends to submit an application to the ISA.
The Trump administration signed an executive order on April 24 ordering the U.S. government to “accelerate” the nation’s seabed mineral industry, and to “expedite the process for reviewing and issuing seabed mineral exploration licenses and commercial recovery permits” in international waters, beyond the jurisdiction of the U.S, and also within territorial waters in the U.S. EEZ. Another deep-sea mining firm, Impossible Metals, which has offices in the U.S., Canada, and Saudi Arabia, announced on April 15 that it would apply for a mining license via the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees mineral resources in territorial waters. The Trump administration’s order to launch the deep-sea mining industry is aimed at securing the nation’s hold on critical minerals and “counter[ing] China’s growing influence over seabed mineral resources.”
“With this Executive Order, the President is paving the way for supply chain resilience and a thriving domestic manufacturing industry,” Erik Noble, principal deputy assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere, said in a statement released April 25. “The United States will lead the world in deep sea mineral extraction, and NOAA is the tip of the spear as we partner with federal agencies and private industry to support the discovery and collection of critical minerals on the sea floor.”
In an FAQ section published after the release of the executive order, the ISA stated that while companies are “free to express their views,” the ISA remains the only legal authority to regulate deep-sea mineral activities in international waters. Any attempt to bypass this process, the agency warned, would constitute a “violation of international law.”
China, another nation pursuing deep-sea mining, echoed this sentiment. A spokesperson for the country’s foreign ministry stated that the U.S. initiative to mine in areas beyond national jurisdiction “violates international law and harms the overall interests of the international community,” according to the BBC. China currently holds five deep-sea mining exploration licenses via the ISA.
“The fact that the U.S. Congress is considering support for President Trump’s rogue EO [executive order] sets a dangerous precedent for the management of all global commons,” Arlo Hemphill of Greenpeace USA, who leads the organization’s campaign against deep-sea mining, told Mongabay in a statement. “Should the U.S. authorize deep sea mining on the international seabed outside of the UN framework, it could have disastrous consequences for the marine environment and multilateralism.”
Alison Gillespie, a public affairs specialist at NOAA, said in a statement emailed to Mongabay that NOAA will carefully review all applications for compliance with DSHMRA, and would work to ensure “a thorough environmental impact review, interagency consultations and opportunity for public comment.” Additionally, Gillespie said the agency was “actively exploring ways to streamline the application process by waiving obsolete requirements, enhancing coordination across agencies and engaging with international and private partners to ensure a transparent, and science-based licensing and permitting framework.”
NOAA has previously granted seabed mining exploration licenses in the CCZ under the DSHMRA, including two that are currently held by defense manufacturing giant Lockheed Martin, but it has never issued a license for commercial exploitation.
TMC made its application public just hours before a congressional hearing was held by the House Committee on Natural Resources, which oversees legislation and policy related to the nation’s natural resources, to discuss the potential of deep-sea mining. It remains unclear how much influence Congress will assert over the executive order Trump signed.
However, Hemphill said he fears Congress could create “legislation that would codify Trump’s EO into US law,” which would make it more difficult to reverse in the future.
Gerard Barron, TMC’s longtime CEO, who acted as a witness at the congressional hearing, said in his written testimony that his company understands the “environmental risks and how to manage them,” and that TMC has “enough real-world data to take on every catastrophizing claim made by environmental NGOs against the polymetallic nodule industry in the CCZ.”
However, Duncan Currie, an international and environmental lawyer and advisor for the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, a group of organizations that actively opposes deep-sea mining, also testified in the congressional hearing. In his written testimony, he said that managing and mitigating the impacts of deep-sea mining would “very challenging” when one considers that “scientific knowledge and understanding of the deep sea is very limited.”
“It is far from adequate to be able to understand the current state of the marine environment, with many fundamental ecological questions … remaining unanswered,” Currie said, “let alone to assess and manage the full effects of deep-sea mining at up to 6 km [3.7 mi] deep.”
Banner image: A glass octopus, a nearly transparent species whose only visible features are its optic nerve, eyeballs and digestive tract, sighted during the expedition. Image by Schmidt Ocean Institute (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Elizabeth Claire Alberts is a senior staff writer for Mongabay and a fellow with the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network. Follow her work on Bluesky: @elizabethalberts.bsky.social.