SINGAPORE, July 24 (Reuters) - Canada's The Metals

Company plans to apply for a licence to extract minerals

from the ocean floor before the end of this year, its chief

executive told Reuters, as nations gather in Jamaica to thrash

out new rules to minimise environmental risks.

The United Nations' International Seabed Authority (ISA) is

currently meeting in Kingston, Jamaica to negotiate a draft

"mining code" that will regulate the collection of "polymetallic

nodules" and other deep sea deposits.

Negotiators have been racing to ensure that formal rules are

in place before mining activities begin. Those rules are now

expected to be completed next year.

"The guidance we told the market is that we would lodge (our

application) after the July (ISA) session," said Gerard Barron,

TMC's chief executive.

"We see no reason to change that. From our perspective, what

we're looking for out of the current session is continual

movement towards finalising the regulations."

The 36-member ISA council is meeting until July 26.

TMC's bid to become the first company to gain approval to

develop deep sea minerals has been controversial. Environmental

groups are calling for all activities to be banned, warning that

industrial operations on the ocean floor could cause

irreversible biodiversity loss.

But TMC says extracting nodules from the ocean floor is far

less damaging than terrestrial mining, and will boost supplies

of elements like nickel and cobalt that are considered vital for

the global energy transition.

TMC, sponsored by the Pacific state of Nauru, invoked the

so-called "two-year rule" in 2021, a provision of the U.N.

Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that allows mining

applications to be submitted within two years, whether the

mining code has been finalised or not.

"There has been tremendous progress in the time since we

lodged that two-year notice, and it does provide us with legal

cover that we can lodge that application at any time," said

Barron.

Once it has been submitted, the application will undergo a

review expected to take one year.

"We said we would like the regulations to be there by the

time we start, but it is not a requirement," he said, adding

that draft regulations already ensure mining is done

responsibly.

As many as 27 countries have backed calls for a pause in

deep sea mining activities, and this month, Hawaii became the

fourth U.S. Pacific state to ban mining in its territorial

waters.

"What we see are a number of states signing on to the notion

that we don't want to see any exploitation before the

regulations are in place," said Barron. "Our response to that

is, same here, so let's get on and get them completed."