The Elements of Deep Sea Mining

Eric Young

Details and Dialogue Matter tradingoff.substack.com

  1. 54 mins ago

    #51: Should Markets Care About DSM (And Vice Versa)? — Bryan Bille, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence

    Bryan Bille is Benchmark Mineral Intelligence’s lead policy and geopolitical analyst, covering the mine-to-electric-vehicle supply chain from a market and geoeconomic angle rather than an advocacy one. Fresh off his first International Seabed Authority session, he tells Eric what struck him most: the ISA room is dominated by legal, governance, and environmental voices, while the market and geoeconomic case for or against deep sea mining is largely absent — a gap Benchmark is trying to fill with independent price assessments and supply-demand forecasting. The conversation works through where the numbers actually point: whether a projected nickel supply deficit means seabed nodules would displace onshore mines or simply run alongside them; the caveats behind Benchmark’s life-cycle assessment for The Metals Company; why the industry’s “green premium” pitch has quietly become a “security premium” pitch instead; and why manganese, not nickel, may be the harder commercial problem, given how slow-moving and locked-in that market already is. Bryan also gives his read on China’s seabed strategy: two to three years behind on deep sea mining, by his sources, but in no apparent hurry, given how firmly it already controls terrestrial and processing supply. Follow Bryan on LinkedIn LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bryanbille Chapters * 00:00:00 — Cold open: is China racing to mine the deep sea? * 00:00:47 — Welcome & introducing Bryan Bille * 00:01:59 — Inside Benchmark Mineral Intelligence’s mine-to-EV coverage * 00:05:06 — Key facts: 15–25 billion tons of nodules, and grades that beat land ore * 00:06:10 — What’s missing from the ISA’s negotiating table * 00:10:55 — Deep sea vs. onshore: supply, demand, and the environmental math * 00:17:36 — From “green premium” to “security premium” * 00:21:04 — Energy transition to energy security — and the next-gen battery race * 00:26:38 — Does the NMC-to-LFP shift kill the case for CCZ nickel? * 00:29:41 — Europe vs. the US on China — and the deep sea mining race * 00:36:15 — The processing bottleneck and the manganese glut * 00:39:59 — Can the West compete with China without government intervention? Resources Mentioned * Benchmark Mineral Intelligence — Deep-Sea Mining Special Issue: source.benchmarkminerals.com/publications/special-issues * Benchmark Mineral Intelligence: source.benchmarkminerals.com * Previous episode referenced — “What Are China’s Deep Sea Research Vessels Actually Doing?” (Kara Fox, CNN & Elizabeth Alberts, Mongabay): tradingoff.substack.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tradingoff.substack.com/subscribe

    #51: Should Markets Care About DSM (And Vice Versa)? — Bryan Bille, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence

  2. 5 days ago

    #50: Cook Islands Part 2 - Concerned Islanders Imogen Ingram and Kelvin Passfield

    Te Ipukarea Society has been one of the most consistent civil society voices in the Cook Islands’ deep sea mining conversation since long before it became international news. In this episode, Eric speaks with two of its members: Imogen Ingram, an accountant-turned-environmental advocate with decades of experience in UN chemical and waste conventions, and Kelvin Passfield, an Australian-born ecologist who has called the Cook Islands home since 1988. Together they offer a ground-level account of what the DSM process looks like from inside one of the world’s most watched jurisdictions — a country that is 99.99% ocean, whose EEZ sits directly over some of the most actively explored nodule fields in the Pacific, and whose government has already passed exploitation regulations while the ISA is still working on its own. What makes this conversation particularly useful for anyone tracking the Cook Islands situation is the level of institutional detail both guests bring. Imogen walks through the consent process as she has experienced it firsthand — the community meetings with no recordings, the DSMA staff who cannot answer questions about investor-state dispute mechanisms, and what she describes as a pattern of regulatory capture that mirrors what civil society has raised at the ISA level. Kelvin picks up the legislative thread, explaining the quiet but significant shift from “public interest” to “national interest” in the Cook Islands’ seabed mining legislation, the consolidation happening among the three active exploration license holders, and why the precautionary approach is the only intellectually honest position when the science on deep sea ecosystem impacts is still this incomplete. Both guests are clear that they support a moratorium rather than an outright ban — and both explain precisely why that distinction matters legally and strategically. Follow Te Ipukarea Society: 🔗 Website: tiscookislands.org🔗 Facebook: Te Ipukarea Society - TIS Chapters: * 00:00:00 – Introduction: Imogen & Kelvin on the Cook Islands * 00:02:22 – Geography: 15 Islands, 99.99% Ocean * 00:06:57 – From Accountant to Environmental Warrior * 00:11:08 – When DSM Became Real: 2007–2012 * 00:22:47 – What Do Cook Islanders Actually Think? * 00:40:51 – Consultation Theater: Appearance vs. Reality * 00:52:40 – Regulatory Capture: The Fox in the Henhouse * 00:56:51 – The Trade-Off Question: Minerals for Climate? * 01:21:40 – Rahui: Traditional Ocean Stewardship * 01:46:05 – Closing: “Just Don’t Do It” Resources: * Deep Sea Conservation Coalition — deepseaconservation.org * IUCN — iucn.org * Marae Moana Act 2017 — govt.co.ck/marae-moana * UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples — un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tradingoff.substack.com/subscribe

    #50: Cook Islands Part 2 - Concerned Islanders Imogen Ingram and Kelvin Passfield

  3. 6 Aug

    #49: Cook Islands part 1: SBM Commissioner Beverly Ataera Explains Seabed Mining Regulations

    Beverly Ataera is the Commissioner of the Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority, the government body overseeing all seabed mineral activity in one of the most resource-rich ocean territories on Earth. The Cook Islands is 99% water, holds an estimated 12 billion tonnes of polymetallic nodules at the bottom of its EEZ, and has been quietly building its regulatory framework for over 12 years — long before COVID, long before Trump's executive orders, and long before deep sea mining became a geopolitical talking point. The episode gets into the geopolitics, the community conversations, and the remarkable way Beverly talks about scale. When Cook Islanders worry about what mining would actually look like, Beverly's team spent six months working out how to explain it. Beverly also pushes back on the narrative that the Cook Islands is caught in a US-China tug of war: they work with America, Japan, Norway, China, and the British History Museum. Science, she says, is a universal language. Success, when it comes, will come on Cook Islands terms — not anyone else's. Follow Beverly LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beverly-stacey/ Chapters * 00:00:00 — Introduction * 00:27:01 — What Makes the Cook Islands Unique * 03:24:00 — Timeline and History * 05:56:00 — Current State * 08:33:00 — Environmental and Commercial Reality Must Align * 12:10:00 — How Rigorous Regulation Actually Works * 14:03:00 — Transparency as Trust * 16:46:00 — Size and Scale * 21:13:00 — Trump’s Executive Order and Maintaining Independence * 25:26:00 — The Trade-Off Question: How to Weigh Environmental Risk Against Economic Benefit * 30:39:00 — Economic Resilience, Healthcare, and Why Cook Islands Won’t Rush * 34:48:00 — Infrastructure and Opportunity * 36:24:00 — Final Framing Resources Mentioned * Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority: sbma.gov.ck * IBOSS (Institute of Blue ocean Sustainability and Science: pmoffice.gov.ck * Tiz: local Cook Islands NGO (search via SBMA website for contact) * Oceans Ancestors: local Cook Islands NGO * Maui Collective: Hawaiian cultural heritage group active at ISA meetings * Marae Moana — Cook Islands Marine Protected Area: sbma.gov.ck This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tradingoff.substack.com/subscribe

    #49: Cook Islands part 1: SBM Commissioner Beverly Ataera Explains Seabed Mining Regulations

  4. 7 July

    #48 Mineral War author Tomasz Nadrowski on the reasons behind China's mineral dominance

    Most conversations about China’s grip on critical minerals stop at the “how” — the export controls, the smelting capacity, the twenty-plus restrictions since 2020. Tomasz Nadrowski, author of Mineral War and portfolio manager at Amvest Terraden, spends this episode on the “why,” and his answer isn’t really about markets at all. It’s about security. Nadrowski traces the legal machinery that makes Western free markets function — a contract-law tradition going back to the School of Salamanca — and argues it simply has no equivalent leverage against a state that treats mineral control as a tool for regime survival rather than profit. From there he walks through how China ended up owning the unglamorous, low-margin middle of the value chain that Western firms were happy to offload in the 1990s, why price floors (not just subsidies) are the only real lever the West has left, and why the distinction between “monopoly” and “weaponized monopoly” is the whole ballgame, illustrated with a live-fire example involving gadolinium and the Tomahawk missile that Eric spends a good five minutes trying to pin down. The back half gets more philosophical and more personal. Nadrowski makes the case via the French philosopher Julien Freund that whether the West is in conflict with China isn’t actually the West’s decision to make, and points to Xi Jinping’s 2013 “Document Number Nine” as evidence the answer was settled years ago. He also gets candid about running a fund that profits from exactly the supply-chain gap his book describes (”isn’t that a false dichotomy? Can’t we just do both?”), and closes by connecting all of it to the deep-sea mining conversation: why the EEZ land-grab in the Pacific may matter less for the minerals themselves than for which geopolitical orbit small island nations end up in. Follow Tomasz LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadrowski/ Chapters * 00:00:00 — Cold Open: “Price Floors Are Non-Negotiable” * 00:00:18 — Welcome & Guest Intro * 00:00:50 — From Career Accident to Mineral War: Tomasz’s Story * 00:08:26 — Why the Free Market Fails on Critical Minerals * 00:19:11 — Price Floors and Rebuilding Western Supply Chains * 00:32:47 — Monopoly vs. Weaponization: The Gadolinium Example * 00:41:05 — Junior Miners and the Exploration Funding Gap * 00:46:39 — Inside the Fund: Profit, Purpose, and the Ethics of Mining * 00:55:30 — Is the West Already at War? Document Number Nine * 00:58:03 — Deep-Sea Minerals and China’s Seabed Ambitions * 01:04:41 — Closing Thoughts Resources & Links Mentioned * Book — Mineral War: China’s Quest for Weapons of Mineral Destruction by Tomasz Nadrowski: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GFNP46NB * Tomasz’s podcast — Tyranny Today: (also on Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/tyrannytoday/) * Amvest Terraden Critical Minerals Fund: https://www.amvestterraden.com/ * “Document Number Nine” (2013 CCP internal memo), full ChinaFile translation: https://www.chinafile.com/document-9-chinafile-translation This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tradingoff.substack.com/subscribe

  5. 25 June

    #46: Conflicting Regimes with Coalter Lathrop

    Coalter Lathrop returns ten months after Episode 21, and the DSHMRA application story has grown significantly messier. Five applications are now public on NOAA’s site — four companies, two of which are subsidiaries of American Metal Incorporated, an entity that didn’t exist until January 2025, with one applicant incorporating as recently as August 2025. His read on the motivation ranges from holding licenses as a future bargaining chip if the US eventually joins UNCLOS, to outright stock pumping by finance-world actors betting on a land-rush narrative. The more consequential development is the first genuine spatial conflict in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone between two separate corporate interests — SeaX, an American Metal subsidiary, filing over areas already reserved for Impossible Metals Bahrain under the ISA. That’s a different problem than TMC’s intra-subsidiary overlap, and it puts Article 139’s obligation-to-ensure clause directly in the spotlight. Coalter has mapped at least 17 states parties — including Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK, Belgium, Nauru, and Tonga — whose nationals appear in these five DSHMRA applications as applicants, contractors, or named technical partners. With the UK already having enacted domestic legislation tying unlawful seabed activity to money laundering law, and parliamentarians in the Netherlands and Switzerland actively raising the issue, Coalter argues the question is shifting from whether these states have an obligation to act — to which one moves first. Follow Coalter LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coalter-g-lathrop-7372bb6/ Chapters * 00:00:47 — Coalter’s Work Over the Past 10 Months * 00:08:02 — The New DSHMRA Applications: Who Is Applying and Why? * 00:17:13 — The First Direct Corporate Conflict: SeaX and Impossible Metals Bahrain * 00:30:38 — The Original Purpose of the ISA * 00:31:33 — The 171 Countries and the Obligation to Ensure * 00:38:51 — 17 Countries With Nationals in the DSHMRA Applications * 00:44:44 — How the UK Has Approached Its Treaty Obligations * 00:45:01 — The Need For Subcontractors and Legal Exposure * 00:51:55 — NORI and TOML Bring Cases Against the ISA * 00:57:46 — Dispute Settlement Gets Its First Test Drive * 01:05:08 — What a Realistic Path Forward Could Look Like * 01:08:28 — Kingston Roundtable, July 20th Legal/Regulatory References: * NOAA DSHMRA Applications comments: https://www.regulations.gov/document/NOAA-NOS-2026-0035-0001/comment * UNCLOS Article 139 — Obligation to Ensure: un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements * Seabed Disputes Chamber 2011 Advisory Opinion: https://www.itlos.org/fileadmin/itlos/documents/cases/case_no_17/17_adv_op_010211_en.pdf Event: * Coalter’s ISA Kingston Roundtable — Monday, July 20th, ISA Council Week 2, Kingston, Jamaica (targeting state delegations; topic: Article 139 obligation to ensure) Previous Appearance: #21: Coalter Lathrop on Risks to International Stability This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tradingoff.substack.com/subscribe

    #46: Conflicting Regimes with Coalter Lathrop

  6. 23 June

    #47: Turning societal concerns to empirical research questions with Ellen Pape

    In this episode, Ellen walks us through the method behind a remarkable 2025 report: a structured, voluntary exercise that translated dozens of competing societal concerns into 80 concrete, actionable research questions about the environmental impacts of polymetallic nodule mining in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. The process drew on input from industry contractors, environmental organizations, policy bodies, and independent scientific experts — and it was done without a single euro of dedicated funding. She also shares the research she considers most urgent: understanding ecological connectivity across the deep sea, particularly how well the network of protected reference zones can actually support recovery and biodiversity preservation. Whether you’re new to the deep sea mining conversation or deep inside it, this episode is a masterclass in what it looks like to take “we just don’t know enough” and turn it into something you can actually act on. Follow Ellen • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellenpape/ • Ghent University Profile: https://www.marinebiology.ugent.be/ellen-pape • ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ellen-Pape Chapters * 00:00:00 – Introduction: Ellen Pape & the Belgian Stakeholder Report * 00:05:02 – How the Roundtable Process Started * 00:08:09 – The Method: From Societal Concerns to 80 Research Questions * 00:18:29 – Translating Concerns into Operational Science * 00:23:31 – The Mitigation Debate * 00:34:40 – Working in a Polarized Field * 00:41:59 – Who Gets to Decide the Trade-Offs? * 00:46:06 – What Research Ellen Says Matters Most * 00:51:09 – Where to Find Ellen & the Report Resources • Belgian Stakeholder Report (Institute of Natural Sciences): https://www.naturalsciences.be • Amon et al. (2022) — Assessment of Scientific Gaps in Deep-Seabed Mining (Marine Policy): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2022.105006 • MiningImpact 3 Project (JPI Oceans): https://www.jpi-oceans.eu/en/ecological-aspects-deep-sea-mining • International Seabed Authority (ISA): https://www.isa.org.jm • MiningImpact / JPI Oceans: https://www.jpi-oceans.eu/en/ecological-aspects-deep-sea-mining • Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels: https://www.naturalsciences.be This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tradingoff.substack.com/subscribe

    #47: Turning societal concerns to empirical research questions with Ellen Pape

  7. 17 June

    #45 Seamount Crusts with Thomas Kuhn

    In this episode, Thomas Kuhn (Marine Geologist and Project Manager, Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources – BGR, Germany) breaks down how ferromanganese crusts form on the ocean floor, and why the scientific community has been looking at the wrong part of the mountain for decades. This conversation gets deep into the chemistry of cobalt enrichment, the role of tidal currents in exposing crust-bearing rock on seamount summits, and why a single underwater plateau could supply Germany’s entire rare earth element demand for eight years — a finding that is genuinely new to the field. Thomas brings a perspective that is rare in the deep-sea mining conversation: three decades of hands-on geological fieldwork combined with the institutional weight of managing Germany’s own exploration licenses. He offers a grounded, evidence-based case for why ferromanganese crusts deserve far more attention than they currently get — and what responsible development of those resources might actually look like. Follow Thomas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-kuhn-a02204288/ Chapters: * 00:00:00 – Teaser: One Seamount, Eight Years of Rare Earths * 00:00:18 – Introducing Thomas Kuhn & BGR * 00:01:42 – Thomas’s Path to Marine Geology * 00:06:41 – How Has Public Perception of Deep-Sea Mining Changed? * 00:12:52 – Natural Variability & The Right Timescale * 00:24:47 – Crust Formation 101: How Ferromanganese Crusts Form * 00:29:47 – Why Cobalt Gets Trapped (And Nickel Doesn’t) * 00:40:05 – Water Depth, Growth Rates & Crust Composition * 00:44:32 – The Seamount Summit Discovery * 00:51:23 – Tidal Currents: The Missing Piece * 00:55:08 – Biology, Connectivity & Environmental Recovery * 00:58:24 – How Far Are We From Mining Crusts? * 00:59:38 – Heavy Rare Earths: The Hidden Value * 01:05:09 – Thomas’s Closing Message & Wrap-Up Resources Mentioned: * Hein, Koschinsky & Kuhn (2020) — nodule composition: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-020-0027-0 * Cruise report SO313 — Louisville Seamounts: https://doi.org/10.48433/cr_so313 * BGR marine minerals page: https://www.bgr.bund.de/EN/Themen/Rohstoffe/Marine-mineralische/marine-mineralische_node.html * An example of the combination of the occurrence of ferromanganese crusts on top of seamounts in relation to water column currents: https:/ / doi.org/ 10.1016/ j.oregeorev.2019.103131 * An example of the occurrence of ferromanganese crusts on a NW Pacific seamount: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.oregeorev.2016.09.032 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tradingoff.substack.com/subscribe

    #45 Seamount Crusts with Thomas Kuhn

  8. 11 June

    #44 The Common Heritage: Rozemarijn Roland Holst Explains Evolution of an Idealistic Principle

    In this episode, Dr. Rozemarijn Roland Holst, Lecturer in International Environmental Law at the University of Edinburgh, traces the full arc of the Common Heritage of Mankind principle: how it emerged from Arvid Pardo’s 1967 UN speech, what different states understood it to mean through the UNCLOS negotiations, how the 1994 Implementing Agreement reshaped the regime, and what its open-ended character means for the exploitation regulations still being developed today. Roze also brings two frameworks into the conversation that are increasingly relevant to the ISA’s work — the “epistemology of crisis,” which examines how urgency-based arguments shape which trade-offs get treated as inevitable, and relational approaches to governance, which offer a different lens for understanding how values beyond extraction and conservation tend to get left out of regulatory design. For those following the ISA’s ongoing regulatory process, the BBNJ agreement’s handling of benefit-sharing, or debates around what “equitable distribution” should look like in practice, this episode is a detailed and legally grounded look at the intellectual history behind the concepts still driving those negotiations. Follow Rozemarijn LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rozemarijnrolandholst/ Chapters * 00:00:00 — Introduction * 00:00:24 — Why Deep Sea Mining Is a Test Case for Bigger Questions * 00:12:17 — Arvid Pardo and the Origins of Common Heritage * 00:22:09 — Benefit Sharing and the UNCLOS Negotiations * 00:26:46 — How the 1994 Implementing Agreement Changed Everything * 00:33:01 — What Does "Benefit of Humankind" Actually Mean? * 00:39:14 — Where the Regime Stands Today * 00:45:31 — The Epistemology of Crisis * 00:53:32 — Relational Approaches to Governance * 00:59:45 — How Should We Think About Trade-Offs? * 01:05:09 — The Case for Deliberative Processes * 01:09:01 — Current Research & Recommended Resources Resources Mentioned 1. Arvid Pardo’s 1967 UN Speech The foundational speech designating the deep seabed as “common heritage of mankind.” * UN document reference: A/C.1/PV.1515, 1 November 1967 * Overview & context: https://www.un.org/press/en/1999/19990716.SEA1619.html * Malta government essay on Pardo: https://foreign.gov.mt/malta-360-insights/how-one-maltese-diplomat-gave-the-world-the-law-of-the-sea/ 2. Surabhi Ranganathan (Cambridge) — History of Common Heritage & the Deep Seabed Regime * “Global Commons” article (EJIL, 2016): https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3427314 * “The Seabed and the South: From Stock Stories to New Histories” (2024): https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4730113 * Cambridge faculty page: https://cambridge.academia.edu/SurabhiRanganathan * The Common Heritage of Mankind: Annotations on a Battle | The Battle for International Law: South-North Perspectives on the Decolonization Era | Oxford Academic (not open access) 3. Julia Dehm — Law, Values, and Environmental Trade-offs * Google Scholar profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=n-SZpT8AAAAJ * Book Reconsidering REDD+ (Cambridge University Press): https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/reconsidering-redd/5D54EFE59BBA35999FEEBD9ACA8EA449 * Question of Value: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/locating-nature/reconfiguring-environmental-governance-in-the-green-economy/7C1C6F265A28EC180A518507B31F8BCF * Question of Value: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003221920-14/legally-constituting-value-nature-julia-dehm 4. Kyle Whyte — Epistemology of Crisis / Indigenous Studies (Referenced by Roze as the source of the “epistemology of crisis” concept) * Faculty page (University of Michigan): https://seas.umich.edu/research/faculty/kyle-whyte * Crisis Epistemology: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3891125 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tradingoff.substack.com/subscribe

    #44 The Common Heritage: Rozemarijn Roland Holst Explains Evolution of an Idealistic Principle
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