Headlines The Week: All you need to know about Varaha-1, a seabed mining machine India is developing Reuters: G7 countries say strict environmental rules needed for deep-sea mining Eco-Business: Credit Suisse joins growing list of banks shunning deep-sea mining Mining Dot Com: The Metals Company deep-water tests polymetallic nodule collector vehicle in Atlantic Daily Beast: […]
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Andrew Thaler for the DSM Observer While environmental impacts dominate the public discussion surrounding deep-sea mining, another highly contentious barrier to the implementation of a deep-sea mining code carries equal, if not greater weight within the International Seabed Authority. The financial regime, a novel payment structure which establishes the mechanism by which proceeds generated from […]
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Andrew Thaler for the Deep-sea Mining Observer Tasked with determining if and how the resources of the deep seafloor in areas beyond national borders would be extracted for their metals and parceled out to meet the profit needs of mining contractors and fulfill the International Seabed Authority’s mandate to manage the seafloor for the good […]
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Engineers successfully lowered the Allseas-designed collector vehicle to the seafloor at depths of 2,470 meters, marking the first time the vehicle had been subjected to ultra-deep-water temperatures and pressures. Engineers then subjected the vehicle to extensive testing of its various pumps and critical mobility functions, driving 1,018 meters across the seafloor. Read the full release here: The […]
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The Cook Islands was recently invited to participate in the Cobalt Institute’s first webinar of the year, held virtually on 20 April 2022 and covering seabed minerals (SBM). Metals like cobalt are essential for the energy transition, with deep seabed minerals increasingly being considered as a potential source. Read the full release here: SBMA Release: […]
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Opinion by Andrew Thaler, DSMO Editor-in-Chief The Earth Negotiations Bulletin was not present at the first part of the 27th Session of the International Seabed Authority. When the ISA Secretariat announced at the February 2020 meeting that they would not be renewing the ENB contract, I did not expect that their absence would be quite […]
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Opinion/Editorial by Alberto Pecoraro Alberto Pecoraro is a PhD Fellow at the Law & Development Research Group of the University of Antwerp (Belgium). His research concerns the international legal protection of deep seabed mining investments. Tuvalu’s recent decision to cancel its sponsorship of Circular Metals Tuvalu Ltd. may entail far-reaching international legal consequences. On the […]
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Andrew Thaler for the Deep-sea Mining Observer While the development of a deep-sea mining code may have slowed to a crawl over the last two years, the mining contractors have been hard at work pushing the limits of marine robotics. Deep-sea mining contractors cleared several key technical milestones in the race to commercialize the deep […]
Read More No update this week as we are busily preparing the post-ISA meeting newsletter.
Read More The first part of the 27th Session of the International Seabed Authority is in full swing. Watch to public portions of the negotiations here: https://isa.org.jm/web-tv While the Earth Negotiations Bulletin usually provides unbiased daily coverage of these negotiations, unfortunately, the ISA Secretariat opted not to contract ENB for this year. The only organization providing highlight […]
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