The brief

Analyst view

• Applied to NOAA for a US permit to collect nodules over about 65,000 km2 of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
• Allseas contract signed May 2026 for a 3 Mt/yr collection system; commissioning targeted Q4 2027.
• A 2022 pilot lifted over 3,000 tonnes of nodules up a 4.3 km pipe to a surface ship.

Technical approach

As reported

Ore

Metal nodules lying on the seabed

Nodules grow over millions of years on the abyssal plain and hold nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese in one rock, with no drilling or blasting.

Collection

Tracked collectors and a riser pipe

Robotic vehicles crawl the seafloor, lift nodules off the mud with water jets and pump them up a 4 km pipe to a surface ship.

Regulation

A US permit instead of the UN route

With international seabed rules still unfinished, TMC USA applied under a 1980 US law, the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act.

Processing

Onshore refining partners

Smelting nodules into nickel-copper-cobalt alloy and manganese was tested with PAMCO in Japan; a refining park in Brownsville, Texas, is proposed.

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