The Canadian miner, the Metals Company, has announced the completion of a controversial deep sea bed mining trial in the Pacific.
The trial was approved by the International Seabed Authority in September much to the dismay of Pacific countries and ocean advocates calling for either a moratorium or a permanent ban on deep sea mining.
The company announced Tuesday 15 November in a newsletter that its subsidiary Nauru Ocean Resources Incorporated (NORI) and offshore partner Allseas had completed their system test in the Clarion Clipperton Zone with environmental impact monitoring still ongoing.
It said the mining trial involved engineers driving a pilot collector vehicle across over 80km of the seafloor collecting approximately 4,500 tonnes of nodules and bringing over 3000 tonnes up a 4.3km riser system to the surface production vessel - Hidden Gem.