Washington, DC (December 7, 2022) – The push to launch the deep sea mining industry received another blow on Monday, December 5, when the Nasdaq stock exchange issued a delisting notice to Canadian miners The Metals Company (TMC). The company, which has been one of the most ardent proponents of the destructive industry, was notified after trading below USD$1 at closing bid price for 30 consecutive days.
Greenpeace Aotearoa campaigner James Hita, who was in México to confront the ‘Hidden Gem’ – the TMC-commissioned deep sea mining ship – as it returned from test mining in the Pacific Ocean to the port of Manzanillo, México, says the falling stock price and delisting notice is another clear signal to investors in The Metals Company that the tide of public opinion is turning against deep sea mining.
Hita said: “We see a future where the ocean that connects and nourishes us all is thriving. A future where people’s way of life is protected and their spiritual connection to the ocean is respected. Deep sea mining has no place in this future.”
The notice comes as civil society and governments worldwide have increasingly called for a halt to the launch of the industry to protect the ocean. The governments of Palau, Samoa, Fiji, Micronesia, Chile, and New Zealand have all called for a moratorium. Germany has backed a ‘precautionary pause,’ and French President Macron recently called for an outright ban at the latest session of COP27 in Egypt.
Public support for a moratorium by leading technology and electric vehicle companies Rivian, Renault, BMW, Volkswagen, Volvo Group, Scandia, Google, and Samsung SDI raises the question of whether a market for these minerals will exist at all.
TMC is also losing investments. Norway’s largest private asset manager Storebrand divested from the company and will exclude them from investments in the future. Storebrand is the ninth bank to exclude investment in deep sea mining. The United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative has urged investors to avoid the industry.
In July 2021, as the company was about to go public, Greenpeace USA, the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, and Global Witness filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stating that the company downplayed the potential environmental impacts of its mining plans and “threatened to mislead the investing public concerning the future profitability of the company.”
Arlo Hemphill, Greenpeace USA Deep Sea Mining campaign lead, said: “In 2021, we sounded the alarm about TMC and the dangers of the deep sea mining industry to our oceans, climate, and communities. Today those concerns have only grown as we learn more about TMC’s questionable relationship with the deep sea mining regulatory body, the International Seabed Authority, which allowed it to gain control of some of the most valuable tracts of the ocean floor. This is in addition to TMC’s concerning neo-colonialist approach that disregards the impact the industry will have on the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples in the Pacific. The planet and communities are already suffering the consequences of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. The last thing we need is a new extractive industry that would only make things worse.”
Nauru Ocean Resources Incorporated (NORI), a fully owned subsidiary of TMC, which recently concluded eight weeks of test mining in the Clarion Clipperton Zone between México and Hawaii, has said it plans to apply for a deep sea mining license in 2023. The approvals for its test were rushed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) under a non-transparent process that scientists and civil society have questioned.
Deep sea mining involves large machinery sucking up minerals from the deep and transferring them to mining ships, producing a large sediment plume on the sea floor that scientists fear could smother ocean life, threaten people’s way of life, and add to the climate crisis. In addition tailings waste will be discharged in the midwater region.
Dr. Helen Rosenbaum, Deep Sea Mining Campaign (DSMC) Coordinator, said: “New modeling heralds that should TMC begin commercial operations, significant environmental liabilities are likely to beset TMC, Allseas, and the governments that sponsor their DSM operations in the Pacific ocean. The modeling indicates that pollution discharged by TMC in its Tonga license area would only take three months to reach the waters of Hawaii and Kiribati.”
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Contact: Tanya Brooks, Greenpeace USA Senior Communications Specialist, P: 703-342-9226, E: [email protected]
Greenpeace USA is part of a global network of independent campaigning organizations that use peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future. Greenpeace USA is committed to transforming the country’s unjust social, environmental, and economic systems from the ground up to address the climate crisis, advance racial justice, and build an economy that puts people first. Learn more at www.greenpeace.org/usa.
