U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent executive order targeting deepsea minerals mining could help put The Metals Company (TMC) on a long-awaited commercial-scale journey.
It is also expected to help reduce U.S. reliance on foreign countries—including China—for critical minerals such as cobalt, copper, manganese and nickel. Critical minerals are essential to technologies such as battery energy storage systems and equipment used by industries that include aerospace and national defense for radar, sonar and laser guidance systems.
The Canada-based company is considered the world’s leader in the deepsea mining of polymetallic nodules, the potato-sized deposits that contain valuable critical minerals. Its efforts in Pacific Ocean’s Clarion-Clipperton Zone have included developing and testing technology with main partner Allseas and others to retrieve nodules from the seafloor using a specialized robotic vehicle, or collector, attached to a modified ultra-deepwater drillship. It has also researched the environmental impacts of harvesting the nodules and tested the refining process of extracting high-grade battery metals from the nodules.
The U.S. is aware and wary of ceding this area of competition to China, especially when a U.S. entity—TMC—is a global leader in development of this technology, Craig Shesky, CFO for The Metals Company (TMC), told Hart Energy. “It would be a shame, I think, for the U.S. to give up that lead, and certainly this administration shows no intention of doing so.”
The absence of finalized regulations from the International Seabed Authority, which regulates deepsea mining in international waters, after more than a decade coupled with environmental concerns about potential to disrupt or damage marine ecosystems, have stymied deepsea mining of critical minerals. Opponents say seabed mining could harm or disrupt marine ecosystems; however, supporters claim it will be less destructive than mining on land, including in rainforests.
For now, the environmental impacts of commercial mining are unknown because it hasn’t been done. Trump’s move could jumpstart the process.
The executive order for seabed minerals calls on U.S. agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), among others, to expedite deep sea mining permits, produce a report exploring opportunities for the private sector to explore and develop the minerals; devise a mineral map with priority areas; and set up an expedited permit approval process and leases for exploration, development and production, among other directives.
The Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act, which became law in 1980, authorizes NOAA—which has studied deepsea mining of critical minerals and nodule collection since the 1970s—to issue exploration and commercial recovery permits to U.S. entities for deepsea mining in international waters. TMC is the first firm to apply for a commercial mining license under the law.
“The U.S. has always been the leader in the space and we feel this executive order reminds the world that the U.S. is ready to return to that seat,” Shesky said.
Shesky was among the executives who shared thoughts on the administration’s critical minerals efforts for the June 2025 issue of Oil and Gas Investor magazine. Here is part of that conversation, which has been edited for clarity, length and style.
Velda Addison: Do you believe that the seabed executive order signals a more aggressive U.S. stance against China’s dominance in resources?
Craig Shesky: Yes, it does. “China has been working to build up their capacity to collect nodules and use deep-sea mining to, frankly, disintermediate many of the countries with whom they’re dependent for feedstock. It’s mainly China dominating processing and refining, which depends on other countries for ore. China views deepsea mining as a way for them to dominate in this next vector of critical minerals competition. We’ve also seen China start to use deep sea mining as a carrot to bring into the fold some Pacific Island nations, such as the Cook Islands and Kiribati, both of which are exploring deep-sea mineral exploration agreements with China. Both of those announcements occurred this year. China wants to show the Pacific Island nations, “hey, if you want to build up your economies, we can help you do it through deep sea mining.” And now I think the United States has seen that happen, and the State Department certainly does not want that to happen.
VA: How is TMC addressing some of this pushback from environmental groups and conservation groups?
CS: Many of those conservation groups have spent no money on in-field observed studies. We’ve spent over $200 million on environmental studies in partnership with some of the best research institutions on the planet. … Experts on these topics have stated many times that the speculation from some of these NGOs has now been disproven. On the issue of plumes—the dust that get picked up when nodules are collected off the seafloor—NGOs have been speculating for years that those plumes might travel for tens of thousands of kilometers and they might reach Hawaii. These are speculative claims, anybody’s able to speculate, but when it's then countered with in-field observed data, the narrative on it should change. And to that end, Dr. Thomas Peacock from MIT, who is the foremost expert on plumes, testified [on April 29] to the House Natural Resource Committee and the thrust of his testimony was that the NGOs have gotten this wrong and that the speculative claims about a plume-insorbed carbon have been disproven. It’s frustrating that the narrative has taken over the scientific data. …TMC shares its data openly with the entire world. That’s how you get good science, but it also means that when conclusions are not supported by evidence, such as those being put forward by the NGOs, those have to be left behind.
VA: TMC recently filed applications for two exploration licenses and one commercial license with NOAA. Can you tell me a little bit about the exploration license? How deep are you all planning to go and what are some of the targets and resource potential?
CS: The resource potential is very large. The nodules are approximately a little over 4,000 meters below the ocean surface. They are lying on top of the seafloor. Through these applications, we are only looking to collect polymetallic nodules that are loosely attached to the seafloor and can be collected without any digging or blasting or drilling. No deforestation, no tailings, nearly zero solid waste. And over the areas with which we applied for exploration, we have SEC compliant and Canadian compliant resource statements indicating a resource of 1.6 billion tons of polymetallic nodules. So this is a resource that is massive. … If you’re thinking about what U.S. needs are for some of these metals, what TMC could provide, let’s just say with 1 billion tons of nodules, which is less than the total amount that we have under exploration, we could provide current U. S. consumption of 81 years of nickel, 165 years of cobalt and 456 years of manganese. This is a solution that takes the U.S. from total import dependency on these three critical metals to total self-sufficiency in all three for many, many decades to come.
VA: What is your timeline for first commercial extraction and processing?
CS: We believe we can be in commercial production in 2027, given the fact that the executive order has directed the Commerce Department—under which NOAA sits as our main regulator—to expedite permitting. That does not mean skipping over any steps. It just means ensuring that everything is on a very tight timeframe and there isn’t any wasted back and forth or anything getting stuck. That would assume we can get our permits in 2026 and begin operations in 2027. There are possibilities to accelerate that, but we want to ensure that going through this NOAA process there is going to be stakeholder consultations, public comment periods, and those are elements in the application that we want to be as robust as possible. So, we’re very excited to have this new, more clear path forward from a regulator, frankly, that has more experience and deepsea ocean research than any other agency on the planet.
VA: What are some of the primary technical challenges TMC may face in deepsea mineral extractions and how are you planning to overcome those?
CS: We’ve already proven that we can collect the nodules at scale. Nothing is easy as you’re doing it commercially for the first time. One of the main things that we’re considering is how to maximize the weights of collection by making the collector vehicle as big as possible. But if you make it a bit too big or too massive, you’re potentially having the collector vehicle sink a little too far into what is a very clay-like seafloor. So, getting the buoyancy right, getting the weight right, those are considerations. We’re also operating at over 4,000 meters, which is a very cold, high-pressure environment. So, of course, you have to ensure you have engineers such as AlIseas who are very capable of working in the deep ocean. But I would say all of these challenges have effectively been de-risked based on the tests TMC has already run. Now, it’s a matter of ramping up and getting to the production levels that we want to.
VA: Who are you targeting as far as prospective buyers? Have you lined up any offtake with, let’s say, I guess, U.S. Defense, any companies in the energy sector, or auto OEMs? Who are your targeted offtakers?
CS: The executive order directed the Defense and Energy Departments to explore offtake of this material. So, stay tuned on that. That just came in the executive order a couple of weeks ago. Beyond that, we do have an offtake with Glencore for half of the nickel and copper from our NORI Area. But that’s only if it’s produced by a TMC-owned facility. We have now made clear that we will be producing the metal from these nodules initially at an existing processing facility in Japan with a partner, Pacific Metals, and they successfully smelted these nodules into high-grade nickel-copper cobalt alloy and manganese silicate product. We had a site visit just a few weeks ago where members of the Southside Research Community as well as battery makers, steel makers, precursor producers, all also toured the facility with interest in potential offtake. So, I would say those conversations are ongoing … and the fact that the U.S. government potentially wants to get involved could make those discussions even easier.
VA: Are there any partnerships emerging in the deepsea mining space, particularly with nations like Norway. You mentioned Japan. Do you see potential for any further partnerships forming?
CS: Absolutely, and that’s a great point in that over the last 18 months, you’ve seen a flurry of activities from countries such as Norway, Sweden, Japan, South Korea, India—all of which have had major headlines regarding those countries’ intentions to explore for or potentially move into commercial production for deepsea mining. For TMC, one of the exciting parts is we have now submitted our application through this U.S. process. And we have, in our view, the best team in the world in terms of deepsea mining expertise, and we have an opportunity to provide services to some of those countries and contractors who want to catch up and who want to pursue this resource either in their own territorial or international waters. TMC has already been approached by multiple parties from states that I mentioned earlier to provide services to them. Whether that takes the form of cash payments or potential equity in their projects or royalties, this is a great way for TMC to potentially expand a resource portfolio using the expertise that our team has already gathered.
VA: Do you believe deepsea mining can realistically reduce U.S. dependence on China within the next five to 10 years and why?
CS: 100%. Because the U.S. currently has zero or de minimis primary production of metals such as nickel, manganese and cobalt. The only nickel and cobalt mine currently operating is the Eagle Mine in northern Michigan, and that only has a few years left of ore. So, the U.S. will be totally dependent on foreign sources for nickel, manganese and cobalt, and China dominates processing for all three of those. So what TMC can bring to the U.S. offshore in the first year of operation, it may not solve all of the U.S. needs, but by the time we get ramped up and to early 2030s, we anticipate being able to provide the majority of, if not all, of the U.S. needs required for nickel, manganese and cobalt. … This is a total solution for providing metals needed for the clean transition, but also all the metals I listed there are necessary for aerospace and defense. So yes, absolutely.