Pacific nation of Kiribati explores deep sea mining deal with China

The company at the vanguard of plans to mine deep sea metals used in electric vehicle batteries has surrendered a third of its Pacific Ocean exploration area after a breakdown in cooperation with the island nation of Kiribati, paving the way for China to add to its regional foothold in the contentious industry.

The Nasdaq-traded The Metals Company, or TMC, terminated, effective mid-January, an agreement with a Kiribati state-owned company that gave it exploration rights to a 74,990 square kilometer (28,950 square mile) area of seabed in the northeastern Pacific, according to a U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission filing.

The termination appears to be at the instigation of Kiribati, one of the 19 countries exercising rights over the seabed in a vast area of international waters in the Pacific regulated by the International Seabed Authority, or ISA, a U.N. body.

Kiribati’s Ministry of Fisheries and Ocean Resources said on Monday it held talks last week with China’s ambassador to “explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep ocean resources.”

It has been a divisive issue in the Pacific, where some economically lagging island nations see deep-sea mining as a potential financial windfall that could lift living standards and reduce reliance on foreign aid while other island states are strongly opposed.

Kiribati told the ISA in June last year that exploration of its area hadn’t progressed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and “operational difficulties with its technical partner,” DeepGreen Engineering, a subsidiary of TMC. 

An ISA report on Kiribati’s progress toward deep-sea mining said it had indicated it was looking for a new partner.

Industry in trouble?

The new path for Kiribati comes as environmental groups raise fresh questions about the viability of an industry that has long promoted a renewable energy narrative to deflect criticism.

Amid a general retreat by large corporations from commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, TMC and other deep-sea mining companies have shifted to emphasizing national security, defense and mineral supply security as benefits of the industry, said Greenpeace deep-sea mining campaigner, Louisa Casson.

The shift has come, she said, after some battery and car manufacturers said they didn’t want to use deep-sea minerals and as an evolution in battery technology could reduce the need for some of the minerals in deep-sea nodules.

Casson said this was clouding the outlook for deep-sea miners and TMC’s surrender of a third of its exploration area was “another sign of a stuttering industry.”

“The self-styled industry frontrunner is crumbling. The last weeks have repeatedly shown that the deep-sea mining industry is failing to live up to its hype and downsizing plans before it’s even started,” Casson said.

“There’s never been a better time for governments to take decisive action to protect the ocean from this faltering, risky industry.”

TMC's chief executive Gerard Barron said the single exploration mission carried out by the company in Kiribati's area, which cost about US$15 million, showed that it was less financially attractive than other areas that TMC has explored.

"We just found that it wasn't as abundant in nodules as some of the neighboring ground that we have with Nauru and Tonga," he told RFA.

"For us it became a case of priorities. We had to continue to invest our money where there was the best likelihood of return. And we knew there were other partners who were wanting to step into our shoes," he said.

Other signs of the industry’s troubles, Casson said, include a Norwegian deep-sea mining company halving its small workforce due to lack of financing and another miner, Impossible Metals, delaying mining trials planned for early 2026.

Closer China ties

A presentation TMC gave to investors in February said preliminary results of its research into the environmental effects of deep-sea mining were “encouraging.” 

Based on mining tests TMC conducted, marine life returns to the seabed after a year and sediment plumes generated by the giant machines that hoover up the nodules are released at depths deeper than tuna fisheries, it said.

Research not linked to the industry, meanwhile, has shown that the site of a deep-sea mining test in 1979 has not recovered more than 40 years later.

The permanent secretary of Kiribati’s ocean resources ministry, Riibeta Abeta, didn’t respond to questions.

The low-lying atoll nation of some 120,000 people in Micronesia has cultivated closer ties to China in the past decade while its relations with traditional donors New Zealand and Australia have become strained. It’s part of a tectonic shift in the region as China uses infrastructure and aid to challenge U.S. dominance.

China last month signed agreements including cooperation on deep-sea mining with the semiautonomous Cook Islands in the South Pacific, angering its traditional benefactor New Zealand.

The Cook Islands has an abundance of polymetallic nodules within its exclusive economic zone and doesn’t require ISA approval to exploit them. 

The Cook Islands hopes for an economic windfall but some of its citizens are concerned about environmental damage and the mining industry’s influence in their country including public relations efforts in schools and funding for community organizations.

Aside from Kiribati, The Metals Company has agreements with Tonga and Nauru to explore and eventually mine their areas in the Clarion Clipperton Zone—the ISA-administered seafloor in the northeastern Pacific. 

Its work with Nauru appears to be the furthest advanced. This month, TMC said it was finalizing an application to the ISA for approval to begin mining in the area allocated to Nauru, a 21-square kilometer island home to 10,000 people.