By Ernest Scheyder and Jarrett Renshaw
(Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Thursday to boost the deep-sea mining industry, the latest attempt to tap international deposits of nickel, copper and other critical minerals used widely across the economy.
The order will likely fast track permitting for deep-sea mining in international waters and let mining companies bypass a United Nations-backed review process, Reuters previously reported.
Shares of The Metals Company – among the most prominent of deep-sea mining companies – rose on Thursday by roughly 40% to hit a 52-week high of $3.39 per share after the Reuters report on the executive order.
Trump has taken several steps already to boost domestic production of critical minerals and combat China’s dominance of the industry that supplies the raw materials needed for a wide range of modern technologies and industries, especially those related to clean energy and defense.
Among other things, he has fast-tracked permitting on 10 mining projects across the United States and implemented an abbreviated approval process for mining projects on federal lands.
The International Seabed Authority – created by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the U.S. has not ratified – has for years been considering standards for deep-sea mining in international waters, although it has yet to formalize them due to unresolved differences over acceptable levels of dust, noise and other factors from the practice.
Trump’s deep-sea mining order is likely to stipulate that the U.S. aims to exercise its rights to extract critical minerals on the ocean’s floor, and to let miners bypass the ISA and seek permitting through the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s mining code, Reuters previously reported.
(Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw and Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
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