China to Test Mine for Rare Metals Off Japan Island; Japan Lagging in Technologies Needed for Extraction

The Yomiuri Shimbun

16:50 JST, December 1, 2024

A state-owned Chinese company plans to conduct a large mining experiment in international waters in the Pacific Ocean, including an area off Minami-Torishima Island, according to informed sources.

This is believed to be the world’s first such experiment. Highly sophisticated technology is needed to conduct mining on a near-commercial scale at a depth of over 5,000 meters.

If China is allowed to conduct commercial development, it may dominate the international supply chain of rare metals.

The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea stipulates that mineral resources at or beneath the seabed in international waters are “the common heritage of mankind.” The International Seabed Authority (ISA), based in Jamaica, controls all activities related to mineral resources in international waters.

There are no international rules at present, so commercial development of seabed minerals is not allowed in international waters. But the ISA gives countries and companies with a certain level of technology the exclusive right to explore specific sea areas as preparation for future development.

The test mining will be conducted by Beijing Pioneer Hi-Tech Development Corp., a state-owned firm that has exclusive exploration rights in two locations off Minami-Torishima Island, just outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone. The island is part of Tokyo’s Ogasawara island chain.

According to the plan the firm submitted to the ISA, it will conduct experimental mining for 20 days in the exclusive exploration zone, about 600 kilometers off the island, around August next year.

The company reportedly plans to suspend special equipment from a depot ship and vacuum manganese nodules from a seabed area measuring about 250,000 square meters. It plans to collect up to 7,500 tons of the nodules on the seabed without bringing them up. China reportedly also plans to examine the possible impact the mining would have on the ecosystem.

Another state-owned firm, China Minmetals Corp., plans to collect about 1,300 tons of manganese nodules on the seabed in international waters off Hawaii between July and October and raise several tons of them.

The ISA aims to draw up international rules on raising minerals from the seabed and commercially trading them in a general meeting next summer. Once commercial trading is allowed, Chinese companies, which will have developed their mining technologies, may embark on massive extractions and dominate the international market.

Rare metals are essential for electric vehicle batteries and high-tech products, and countries around the world are scrambling to acquire them. But Japan is lagging behind China and Western countries in the technologies necessary to mine and raise such metals.

Countries are allowed to develop seabed resources within their EEZs, and the Japanese government set a goal in the national strategy drawn up in April to start commercial development of rare earths in fiscal 2028 or later. However, the experimental projects planned by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and others are on a small scale and are expected to start in fiscal 2026 at the earliest.

“If China succeeds in the upcoming large-scale experiments, its mining technology will advance to the world’s top level,” said Prof. Yasuhiro Kato of the University of Tokyo. “Japan should expedite efforts to develop seabed resources by taking advantage of its superiority of having such resources within its EEZs.”