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Debate over impact of deep-sea mining has lasted decades

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The Metals Co hopes for permit by year-end

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Glencore ( GLCNF ) has said it would be metals it extracts

By Ernest Scheyder

Jan 22 (Reuters) - The Metals Co on Thursday

became the first deep-sea miner to seek Washington's ‌approval to

mine the international seabed under a streamlined permitting

process introduced earlier this week.

Deep-sea mining has the ​potential to provide large amounts of

the minerals needed for electric vehicles ‍and the energy

transition, but debate over the environmental damage ⁠it may

cause has ⁠dragged on for decades and prevented licenses being

issued.

The U.S. Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and

Atmospheric ‌Administration on Wednesday said it would

consolidate the ​licensing and permitting process into a single

and ostensibly shorter review.

"Those amended regulations pave a pathway for faster

permitting and us ⁠moving into commercial production sooner

rather than ‍later," Gerard ​Barron, TMC's CEO, told Reuters.

COMPANY HOPES TO OBTAIN PERMIT BY YEAR-END

The Vancouver-based company hopes to obtain its permit by

the end of ‍the year, Barron said.

London-listed miner and commodity trader Glencore ( GLCNF ) has

agreed to buy metals TMC extracts from the seabed.

Under the new guidelines, The Metals Co resubmitted an

application it had filed last April to operate in part of the

Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico known as the

Clarion-Clipperton Zone.

The ​company ‍said two zones that The Metals Co has applied to

operate in contain an estimated 800 million metric tons of rocks

known as ​polymetallic nodules filled with critical minerals

including nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese.

The Metals Co and other supporters of deep-sea mining say it

would lessen the need for large mining operations on land, which

are often unpopular with host communities.

Environmental groups have called for the activity to be banned,

warning that industrial operations on the ocean floor ​could

cause irreversible biodiversity loss.

The United Nations-backed International Seabed Authority has

been engaged in a protracted quest for international mining

standards.

Any country can allow deep-sea mining in its own territorial

waters, roughly up to ‍200 nautical miles from shore.