The Metals Company

TMC the metals company Inc.

Trade name	The Metals Company
Formerly	DeepGreen Metals
Company type	Public
Traded as	Nasdaq: TMC
Founded	2011; 14 years ago (2011)
Headquarters	Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Website	metals.co

TMC the metals company Inc.,^[1] doing business as The Metals Company, formerly DeepGreen Metals, is a Canadian deep sea mining exploration company.^[2] The for-profit company focuses on the mining of polymetallic (nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese) nodules^[3][4] in the Clarion Clipperton Zone of the Pacific.

DeepGreen Metals was founded in 2011. That same year, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) granted exploratory contracts for polymetallic nodules and polymetallic sulphides in the international deep seabed Area to Nauru Ocean Resources Inc. (NORI), sponsored by the Republic of Nauru, and Tonga Offshore Mining Limited (TOML), sponsored by Tonga.^[5] NORI was and continues to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Metals Company (at the time, DeepGreen Metals).^[6] The company would later acquire TOML.

In 2021, DeepGreen Metals merged with Sustainable Opportunities Acquisition Corp (SOAC), a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC), in a $2.9 billion deal that enabled DeepGreen to go public. The resulting company was renamed The Metals Company and began trading on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange under the ticker "TMC."^[7] In June 2021, NORI’s sponsoring state, the Republic of Nauru, informed the ISA of its intent to begin exploiting deep sea minerals, which required the ISA to finalize and adopt regulations for deep-sea mining within two years.^[8] In March 2022, The Metals Company, through its subsidiary NORI, submitted an Environmental Impact Statement for its planned integrated collection system test in the Clarion Clipperton Zone.^[9] Following an open stakeholder consultation, NORI was granted permission from the ISA to start trials collecting nodules rich in nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese on the NORI-D area.^[10] Since first receiving an exploratory contract in 2011, The Metals Company has conducted 22 offshore research campaigns on the NORI exploration area as part of its Environmental and Social Impact Assessment.^[11]

Nauru Ocean Resources Inc (NORI) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Metals Company.^[6] In 2011, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) granted a polymetallic nodule exploration contract to NORI, sponsored by the government of Nauru, for an area covering 74,830 square kilometres in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ).^[5] In June 2021, Nauru notified the ISA of NORI’s plans to submit an exploitation application for the NORI area, which according to Section 1, Part XV of the 1994 Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, gave the ISA a two-year time frame to complete the adoption of rules, regulations and procedures necessary to facilitate the approval of deep-see mining applications.^[6][12][13] As of July 2023, the ISA is required to consider and provisionally approve any applications for deep sea commercial exploitation based on the current fourth draft regulations.^[14]

In 2021, when The Metals Company was formed through a merger between DeepGreen Metals and Sustainable Opportunities Acquisition Corp, Industry observers questioned the company's "green" positioning.^[4][15] Baird Maritime noted that The Metals Company had no revenue or production as of April 2021, and highlighted the company's risky commercialization efforts: "Nobody has successfully managed to commercially harvest the nickel, copper, manganese, and cobalt from the nodules in 4,500 metres of water since interest was first stimulated in seabed mining in the 1970s."^[16] The Wall Street Journal noted that CEO Gerard Barron previously backed another deep sea mining company, Nautilus Minerals, that "lost a half-billion dollars of investor money, got crosswise with a South Pacific government, destroyed sensitive seabed habitat and ultimately went broke".^[4]

Many scientists expressed concerns over the risks of deep-sea mining.^[17][18] In response to DeepGreen's efforts in Nauru, over 400 scientists signed a statement in opposition, alleging that it would result in the “loss of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning that would be irreversible on multi-generational timescales.”^[17][19] In 2021, DeepGreen published an open letter defending its practices after four BMW, Volvo, Google, and Samsung SDI supported a World Wildlife Fund call for a moratorium.^[20] In November 2023, The Metals Company published an open letter to advocates of ocean conservation, calling for open dialogue on deep-sea mining, emphasizing environmental responsibility, transparency, and collaboration to balance sustainability with resource needs for the energy transition.^[21] In February 2024, Seaver Wang, ocean scientist and Co-Director of Climate and Energy at the Breakthrough Institute, published an article arguing for “open mindedness toward seafloor mining” given the various potential advantages over land-based mining, and warning that “calling for immediate moratoriums on deep-sea mining is not only premature, but a circumvention of constructive dialogue and negotiation.”^[22] This view was later supported by the Federation of German Industries – which represents 38 industrial sectors, including automotive – who argued that “a precautionary pause or a unilateral moratorium will neither lead to less extraction of raw materials in the deep sea nor to more environmental research or the development of high environmental protection standards”, and that small-scale operations should begin promptly to allow for the collection of further impact data.^[23]

The Metals Company says the harvesting in the ocean is less damaging than the land-based mining activities. Opponents to deep sea mining counter that the damage to the fragile ecosystem at the bottom of the ocean is irreversible and such mining is no guarantee that land-based mining will be slowed; however, a review of 11 separate seafloor disturbance experiments and test mining work shows positive – but not full – recovery for fauna after 26 years.^[24] Opponents say the ocean floor contains sea life that does not exist elsewhere and should not be disturbed.^[25] The speed of life and development on the ocean floor is very slow, disturbances, even minor, may have long-lasting effects.^[26]

Right now, however, there are no established regulations or environmental standards in place. The Metals Company says it’s leaving ample time for those rules to be finalized, but opponents say the company is bolting ahead of the collective efforts to come to a consensus about regulating the deep seas. ^[25]

New research also sheds new light on the effect of the polymetallic nodules on the sea floor. They have an effect on the amount of oxygen in that part of the marine environment, and removing the nodules has effects that are completely unknown.^[27]

In 2024, the company was subject to scrutiny on an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.^[28] Oliver’s episode has since been criticised by some researchers and ocean scientists, who warned that his segment repeated exaggerated misconceptions commonly circulated by opponents of deep-sea mining, especially regarding carbon storage and sediment disturbance. Studies have shown the ocean's surface, not the seafloor, plays a much larger role in carbon absorption, while the potential disturbance of sediment during nodule collection is likely minimal according to most estimates.^[29]