The Deep-Sea Mining Commodity Frontier: Blue Economy Agenda in the Pacific Ocean

Amid the rising demand for “transition minerals” required for clean energy technologies, the deep-sea mining (DSM) commodity frontier is emerging in the Pacific Ocean. Promoted under the “blue economy” as a means to stimulate “blue growth” and generate equitable economic and environmental benefits for Pacific Small Island Developing States, there has been growing commercial and state interest in extracting minerals from the deep sea.

Amid the rising demand for “transition minerals” required for clean energy technologies, the deep-sea mining (DSM) commodity frontier is emerging in the Pacific Ocean. Promoted under the “blue economy” as a means to stimulate “blue growth” and generate equitable economic and environmental benefits for Pacific Small Island Developing States, there has been growing commercial and state interest in extracting minerals from the deep sea. We elucidate the current strategies of capital accumulation through the case of the NORI-D project, sponsored by the Republic of Nauru and operated by The Metals Company (TMC), which is set to become the first commercial DSM project in the Pacific. Drawing from a world ecology approach, we argue that the blue economy agenda has facilitated the expansion of the DSM commodity frontier by creating conditions for profitability in the oceans through a permissive regulatory environment favoring corporate interests. Based on semi-structured interviews with stakeholders, we examine how the production strategies of TMC have centered around the green transition, geopolitics, and development over the past decade, when it has been attempted to expand the DSM commodity frontier. In doing so, broader socio-ecological injustices are revealed, which continue to evolve through neo-colonial relationships.

Introduction

Commercial deep-sea mining (DSM) is on the cusp of commencing in areas beyond national jurisdiction (also known as the “Area”) in the Pacific Ocean. It represents a new frontier of the emerging “blue economy,” defined as “new ways of organizing ocean economies to provide equitable economic and environmental benefits” [1]. Formulated at the Rio+20 conference in 2012, the blue economy concept emphasizes the need to utilize the oceans to stimulate “blue growth” and “address sustainable development challenges,” particularly for Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS) with significant coastlines and maritime areas [2]. This has led to “the world’s oceans… facing a ‘new industrial frontier’” from the DSM industry, which aims to extract minerals from the deep sea [3]. Indeed, the seabed is perceived by DSM proponents as a vast, lucrative area offering large sources of minerals essential for producing renewable energy technologies, such as electric vehicle batteries. Of particular interest is the Clarion–Clipperton Zone (CCZ), located in the abyssal South Pacific Ocean, which contains a high abundance of polymetallic nodules (PMNs) consisting of manganese, copper, nickel, and cobalt, also presented under the slogan “a battery in a rock” [4]. This area is regulated by the International Seabed Authority (ISA), which has not yet allocated any exploitation contracts to extract the resources in the seabed but plans to finalize regulations by July 2025 [5].

While proponents of DSM focus on the potential benefits of extraction, opponents highlight the ongoing issues related to the legal complexities of regulating activities in international waters, the consequences for PSIDS given that corporations are driven by profit rather than environmental or societal concerns, and the possibility that new technologies and processes of extraction may cause irreversible harm to the ocean ecosystem [6]. A nascent body of literature has begun to explore these complexities in the Pacific [7–12]. However, this research has focused on the relatively recent developments in DSM and overlooks the longer-term historical unfolding of capitalism in the Pacific and its influence on the expansion of the DSM industry. To address these shortcomings, this article adopts a world ecology approach, which emphasizes how ongoing capitalist development should be understood as a succession of “ecological regimes,” whereby nature-society relations generate patterns of economic exploitation, spatial organization, resource appropriation, and technological innovation over time [13–15]. Our main aim is to expose the strategies deployed by firms to expand the DSM industry in the Pacific, highlighting the historical continuities in capitalism’s ecological regimes as they pertain to Nauru. The Nauru-sponsored NORI-D project, operated by The Metals Company (TMC), is used as an empirical case study because it is set to become the world’s first commercial DSM project in the CCZ.

The article addresses two research questions: “How has the blue economy agenda facilitated the expansion of the DSM commodity frontier in the CCZ?” and “How have firms attempted to expand the DSM commodity frontier?” Commodity frontiers are defined as “the geographical expansion of commodity production and exchange” [16], while the “blue economy agenda” is defined as a politically orchestrated socio-ecological fix that seeks to address the development needs of PSIDS and climate change concerns, but with methods geared toward the expansion of capital accumulation [17]. We argue that the blue economy agenda has strongly influenced the DSM commodity frontier through neoliberal environmental governance enacted by the ISA, and firms seeking to expand the DSM commodity frontier have adopted production strategies centered around the green transition, geopolitics, and development. We aim to show how corporations attempt to use commodity widening, deepening, and marketing strategies to conceal socio-ecological harm and gain the “social license to operate” (SLO) in the CCZ, which is required for the expansion of the DSM commodity frontier.

The article proceeds as follows. Section 2 offers a brief overview of DSM in the Pacific Ocean and the phosphate commodity frontier in Nauru. In Section 3, the commodity frontier theoretical framework is outlined, and its relevance to DSM is discussed by drawing on the concept of the blue economy. Section 4 outlines the methodological approach to the research, which is based on semi-structured interviews with various stakeholders in the NORI-D project. Section 6 explores the research findings. Moreover, it focuses on the corporate strategies used to justify the NORI-D project in the CCZ, exposing the historical similarities with colonial phosphate mining in Nauru. It also emphasizes the importance of commodity marketing strategies deployed by TMC to acquire social legitimacy in shaping the viability of commodity widening and deepening strategies across the DSM commodity frontier. Finally, this article concludes by summarizing the key findings, suggesting limitations of the research project, and proposing avenues for future research.

Background
2.1. Deep-sea mining in the Pacific Ocean

Since the discovery of PMNs in the CCZ in the late 19th century by the HMS Challenger expedition, the Pacific Ocean has been the focal point of global DSM exploration activities, as it holds the greatest abundance and highest concentrations of deep-sea mineral deposits [18]. Commercial interest in DSM began in the 1960s and 1970s in response to the commodities boom, driving the formation of multinational consortia from the Global North aiming to extract PMNs from the CCZ in the Pacific Ocean [18,19]. By the 1980s, many of these ventures were discontinued due to legal-political issues concerning mining governance under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and falling commodity prices [18]. However, since 2010, there has been renewed interest in PMNs in the CCZ, which contain more manganese, nickel, and cobalt than all combined terrestrial reserves [20]. This renewed interest has been driven by heightened mineral demand and prices, supply concerns, and technical advances in DSM exploration [18,21].

At the time of writing, the ISA has approved 17 PMN exploration contracts in the CCZ (see Figure 1), with private entities holding 9 out of the 17 contracts [22]. Although commercial mining has not yet begun, as no exploitation contracts have been allocated, member states of the ISA are currently finalizing a mining code to provide a “holistic regulatory framework for the exploitation of the resources in the Area” [23]. In 2011, Nauru, in collaboration with TMC (formerly DeepGreen Metals), became the world’s first developing state to sponsor an application for a DSM project in the Area. Since Nauru triggered a treaty provision known as the “two-year rule” in July 2021—compelling the ISA to finalize commercial mining regulations within two years—international pressure has increased to commence commercial DSM operations [24].
Figure 1 Map of Clarion–Clipperton Zone exploration and reserved areas for polymetallic nodules. Source: ISA [25].
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Since its founding in 2011, TMC has played a leading role in the DSM industry in the CCZ and is affiliated with three contracts with PSIDS, one of which is operated by Nauru Ocean Resources Inc. (NORI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of TMC [26,27]. NORI holds exploration rights to four areas (NORI Areas A, B, C, and D), totaling a combined area of 74,830 km2, with the NORI-D area expected to become the first project to commercially extract PMNs [28]. The roles of Nauru and TMC in this project will be explored in Section 5, but before doing so, the next section provides a brief overview of the development of the phosphate commodity frontier in Nauru to contextualize the recent shift to DSM.
2.2. The phosphate commodity frontier in Nauru

Nauru is located in the South Pacific Ocean, on the western edge of the CCZ (see Figure 2). The small island was ecologically ravaged by colonial powers that engaged in aggressive extraction of Nauru’s cheap, high-quality phosphate deposits, used as fertilizer for agro-industrial colonial-settler societies [29]. Nauru’s resource wealth is derived from phosphorus-rich guano (bird droppings) that accumulated over several millennia when the island was just a cluster of coral reefs [30]. The entire surface was eventually covered by guano, forming a hardened rocky landmass [31].
Figure 2 Map showing the location of Nauru. Source: [32].
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The first phosphate mining operations began in 1906, during German colonial control of the island [33]. Following the end of the First World War, the British Phosphate Corporation took control of phosphate mining to ensure Australia and New Zealand could access Nauru’s phosphate resources [29]. The phosphate deposits were extensively extracted to support the agricultural economies of Australia and New Zealand. When the island gained independence in 1968, 30% of its land area had been stripped of phosphate [29]. Mining activities were then accelerated under the Nauru Phosphate Corporation but the large revenues were mismanaged, leaving the country deeply indebted [34]. Almost a century of phosphate mining rendered most of the island uninhabitable, with 80% of the island mined for phosphate [33].

The history of the phosphate commodity frontier in Nauru reveals how the island was transformed into a peripheral sacrifice zone for industrialized economies and subjected to extreme forms of extractivism. The current shift to DSM highlights how neo-colonial structures of unequal ecological exchange between the Global North and South are perpetuated in the ocean space. This enduring relationship is further explored in Section 6, which examines the neo-colonial relations between TMC and Nauru in the NORI-D project. Before doing so, the next section provides a brief review of the previous literature related to DSM.
2.3. Commodity frontiers in the blue economy

This section presents the theoretical framework of this article by examining how new commodity frontiers in the blue economy have developed. To do so, we incorporate aspects of Moore’s [35–38] work on commodity frontiers with critical insights into the political economy of the blue economy to explicitly conceptualize the role of corporate strategies in the development of the DSM commodity frontier.

According to Moore [36], capitalism is an ecological regime, defined as the “patterns of governance (formal and informal), technological innovations, class structures, and organizational forms” that sustain capital accumulation. Ecological regimes expand through new commodity frontiers, relying on the “capitalization of nature” to enable appropriation and capital accumulation [37]. Moore [37] considers how capitalism operates within the “web of life,” where “human” and “extra-human” natures are intertwined—articulated as the “double internality.” The capitalist epistemic construct of the separation of “nature” from “society” is a core element of how commodity frontiers operate, converting uncapitalized natures into sources of “cheap” raw material, labor, food, and energy [37]. This process leads to socio-ecological exhaustion through the exploitation of nature’s “free gifts” and perpetuates cycles of uneven geographies of dispossession and exploitation [39]. In the case of DSM, PMNs on the deep seabed floor have been transformed in their social relations from “free gifts” of nature into “cheap raw materials” for clean energy technologies.

Commodity frontiers also involve dynamic fields of power relations that recreate core-periphery relations, thereby reordering humans and more-than-humans [38,40]. The uneven geographies of dispossession can be observed in the blue economy, particularly within DSM. While DSM is conceived as both a significant source of economic growth and an alternative to land-based mining, under the blue economy agenda, it has developed through neo-colonial structures of unequal ecological exchange between the Global North and South [41]. Consequently, some political ecologists argue that the blue economy acts as a “smokescreen for ongoing processes of dispossession and displacement of coastal areas” and fosters ocean/seabed grabbing, where powerful actors seize control, use, or access ocean space or resources from local communities [13,42,43].

Commodity frontiers are constituted through two interrelated strategies: (1) commodity widening and (2) commodity deepening [35]. The widening strategy entails the expansion and occupation of new geographical spaces, allowing for the appropriation of “high ecological surplus” by firms [36]. These surpluses are created from uncommodified zones with exploitable “cheap nature,” enabling enhanced accumulation opportunities as these spaces and their resources have not yet been directly “valued” by capital [44]. Conversely, the deepening strategy involves the intensification of existing commodity production in established sites through socio-technical innovation as the ecological surplus is gradually exhausted. In Moore’s [35] original conception, commodity widening typifies the early stages of frontiers in a new region with a high ecological surplus ripe for appropriation, whereas commodity deepening typifies mature frontiers with declining ecological surplus, requiring intensified production through innovation to ensure adequate profitability [45]. However, in the emerging DSM commodity frontier, both widening and deepening dynamics coexist in the same location. The DSM commodity frontier may be expanding into new geographic spaces, such as exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and the CCZ, through company explorations (widening), while being deepened by other companies in the same spaces through the development of new extraction technologies (deepening).

Building upon Ertör and Ortega-Cerdà’s [46] work on the intensive marine aquaculture sector in Turkey, we expand upon a third commodity frontier strategy—marketing strategies employed by firms. This strategy elucidates how the emergence of commodity frontiers in the blue economy is contingent upon access to nature, where firms and states play active roles in influencing such processes [44,47]. In the DSM commodity frontier, this plays out through struggles around access to seabed minerals, with ISA meetings setting the broader conditions under which resource extraction can occur. Marketing strategies act as an integral firm strategy in the DSM commodity frontier, aiming to manufacture consent from states and other stakeholders to expand new markets and ensure demand for intensified production [46]. These strategies are crucial for mining companies in the emerging DSM industry, which rely on a SLO to extract ecological surplus in the face of an indeterminate future [37,48]. Similar to land-based mining, DSM firms require a SLO to minimize the risks posed to the profitability of a project and utilize various initiatives to secure it [49]. Such initiatives have sought to indirectly influence commodity frontiers from the exchange side by creating new exchange values based on environmental, geopolitical, and economic concerns in existing markets.

Methodology

To gain insights into how the blue economy agenda and firm strategies have impacted the development of the DSM commodity frontier, we conducted online semi-structured interviews with stakeholders involved in the NORI-D project in the CCZ. Respondents were chosen based on the organizations and companies they represent, which act as major players in the NORI-D project. Initial contact was made via LinkedIn and organization websites. We followed a snowball approach for sampling, where interviewees referred us to other relevant individuals. In total, nine interviews were conducted across three stakeholder groups: TMC and NORI employees, NGO representatives, and independent experts. To protect privacy, interviewees’ names are anonymized, although their affiliated organizations are indicated to provide context for quotations, as detailed in signed consent forms distributed during the research. By engaging with multiple stakeholder groups, we sought to capture nuanced and diverse perspectives on DSM, balancing potential biases.

The semi-structured interviews revolved around the implications and drivers of DSM, particularly in relation to Nauru. These interviews, conducted via video call, lasted between 20 and 70 min. While the qualitative data generated valuable insights, the research faced limitations due to the small sample size, potentially excluding other stakeholder perspectives, and a bias toward socially desirable answers—especially among interviewees representing DSM industry interests [50]. Furthermore, given the difficulties in contacting stakeholders in PSIDS, most interviewees (n = 6) were located in high-income countries in the Global North, which influenced the insights derived from the data collected. We sought to mitigate these limitations by complementing the qualitative data with evidence from gray and academic literature.

The qualitative data collected were analyzed using a hybrid deductive-inductive content analysis using NVivo [51,52]. The category system used in the analysis enabled the operationalization of the commodity frontier framework [53]. This hybrid method allowed for systematic analysis of specific aspects of the interview data by starting with an initial coding system informed by the literature review, followed by the inductive development of additional codes based on points raised by interviewees. This approach helped identify key arguments within each analytical category (see Figure 3). Although the initial categories (green transition, geopolitics, and development) were derived from the literature, the inductive method helped mitigate researcher preconceptions [50,53]. Finally, the results were triangulated with other sources, including academic articles, policy documentation, and reputable news outlets. The outcomes of our research are discussed in the next section, which analyzes TMC’s production strategies in the NORI-D project.
Figure 3 Coding map illustrating the results of the content analysis.
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Results and discussion

This section presents the key findings of the study, focusing on the corporate strategies employed to expand the DSM commodity frontier, divided thematically into three core topics: the green transition, geopolitics, and development (see Figure 4). These themes have emerged from a qualitative analysis of interview data and highlight how the blue economy agenda has facilitated the DSM commodity frontier. As an illustrative case study, this section focuses on the NORI-D project and TMC’s efforts to expand the DSM commodity frontier over the past decade. We expose how this has developed in a similar way to the phosphate commodity frontier in Nauru, highlighting how production strategies continue to function through neo-colonial processes of commodity frontier expansion and reconfiguration [15].
Figure 4 Conceptualizing the interconnections between the green transition, geopolitics, and development.
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4.1. Green transition

Transitioning to renewable energy sources relies on dramatic increases in the demand for many minerals for clean energy technologies. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the production of minerals critical for these technologies may need to quadruple over the next two decades to achieve the Paris Agreement warming limit of “well below” 2°C [54]. To meet the high mineral demands of the green transition, PMNs in the CCZ are often presented by TMC as a “nodule solution” that can address the expected mineral shortages and help meet the growing resource demands of developing countries [55]. Representing 22% of TMC’s estimated exploitable resources in the CCZ, the NORI license area has the largest undeveloped nickel deposit in the world [27]. Under TMC’s optimistic outlook, the NORI-D project, containing 345 million wet tonnes of nodules (see Table 1), is expected to provide a significant quantity of new supply of high-grade minerals by 2026 (this forecasted production date is contingent upon the ISA developing a mining code by this date.) [56]. Given that the majority of global resources are currently consumed in high-income and upper-middle-income countries, the growth of lower-middle and low-income countries is expected to significantly increase global mineral demand as they industrialize and shift away from fossil fuels [57]. As one TMC employee (#3) states, “Where are the hundreds of millions of people going to get the materials to have a good quality of life?” Focusing on the mineral supply benefits of DSM operates as one of the commodity marketing strategies deployed by TMC, aiming to gain social legitimacy. This also functions as a commodity-widening strategy in the DSM commodity frontier by attempting to influence the ISA and Member States to agree upon a regulatory framework, enabling the exploitation of the CCZ to benefit developing nations and meet the mineral needs of the green transition.
Table 1 NORI-D mineral resource estimates
Resource category Tonnes (Mt, wet) Abundance (wet kg/m2) Nickel (%) Copper (%) Cobalt (%) Manganese (%) Silicon (%)
Measured 4 18.6 1.42 1.16 0.13 32.2 5.13
Indicated 341 17.1 1.40 1.14 0.14 31.2 5.46
Measured + Indicated 345 17.1 1.40 0.14 0.14 31.2 5.46
Inferred 11 15.6 1.38 0.12 0.12 31.0 5.50

Source: AMC [28].

Various opponents criticize the attempts of TMC to shape the DSM commodity frontier with the notion that DSM is “required” to meet the mineral needs for the green transition. As argued by one environmental NGO (#5), “We’re being trapped in the greenwashing of this [DSM] industry, saying that we need these metals for a green transition.” This “need” for metals is reminiscent of how Australia and New Zealand sought to shape the phosphate commodity frontier over the past century, using colonial extractivist practices to extract phosphate from Nauru to meet the “needs” of their national agricultural economies [29,30]. Continuing this legacy of neo-colonial structures of unequal ecological exchange, TMC emphasizes the supply-side problems of the energy transition and deliberately disregards the demand-side issues in the market equation. As Christophers [58] argues in the context of the broader energy transition, it is vital to consider the whole market system where energy demand, as well as mineral demand, is heavily concentrated in wealthier countries situated in the Global North. Emphasizing this point, many NGOs point out the viable alternatives to meet the increased demand for minerals without extracting PMNs from the CCZ [59–61]. A WWF study found that a combination of technological change, recycling, and circular economy strategies could reduce cumulative demand for critical minerals by 58% through 2050, thereby significantly reducing the need for additional mineral supply [62]. Such challenges from NGOs pose significant challenges for TMC and have caused the company to incorporate other strategies to shape the DSM commodity frontier.

TMC also justifies its NORI-D project by drawing a comparison with the impacts of terrestrial mining for the green transition. TMC contends that seabed minerals offer a better alternative to the environmental and social issues linked to the land-based mining industry [55]. One TMC representative (#3) highlighted the “severe environmental and social impacts” of cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and nickel mining in Indonesia, often involving child labor, land conflicts, and deforestation for the extraction of each respective mineral [63]. By contrast, TMC claims that the NORI-D project is a “unique operation” where the “socioeconomic issues typically seen on land projects just don’t apply here in the same ways” (#4). TMC invokes the nature of the nodules and seabed to construct mining as comparatively socially and environmentally less harmful than land-based mining operations [11]. However, the commencement of DSM in the CCZ would not necessarily lead to the elimination or reduction of environmental and social issues linked to terrestrial mining; the sectors would simply become competitors in a larger minerals market [64]. This accumulation strategy reveals how DSM operates as a “blue fix” to climate-induced crises of accumulation primarily aimed at enticing state and corporate investment in ocean technologies and extractive industries without addressing the ecological harms of existing methods of mining [65].
4.2. Geopolitics

In the face of growing skepticism toward TMC’s framing of DSM as a way to secure transition minerals, the company has also utilized geopolitical arguments centered around mineral security concerns as a commodity-widening strategy to expand the DSM commodity frontier. TMC has sought to capitalize on terrestrial mining issues by presenting DSM as a solution for the growing security concerns surrounding terrestrial mineral supply chains. This strategy is now being increasingly deployed to profit from the deep sea. As one interviewee (#9) noted, in light of recent major geopolitical disruptions, “they’re [TMC] now pivoting much more toward strategic minerals rather than transition minerals” because of growing security concerns surrounding mineral supply chains. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 heightened concerns over mineral security, as the Russian Federation was the world’s largest exporter of several minerals such as nickel before the war [24]. Many nations have also become increasingly concerned over China’s dominance in mineral supply chains (see Figure 5), particularly due to the high concentration of minerals processed in the country which China has begun to “weaponize” through export restrictions [66]. As a result, a growing number of countries have begun to diversify their reliance on Chinese-processed minerals through new state policies such as the US’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) [67].
Figure 5 Global extraction and processing of select critical minerals (%). Source: Data compiled from IRENA [24].
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TMC has aligned its marketing strategy with state security concerns by presenting DSM as a means to improve mineral security, with one TMC representative (#4) arguing that DSM “gives nations the ability to diversify supply away from the concentration of certain metals from China or Russia.” To strengthen this strategy, TMC has engaged in commodity widening through several strategic partnerships to establish a credible supply chain, circumventing both countries (see Figure 6). In support of TMC’s attempts to establish a legitimate PMN supply chain, a growing number of states have engaged in the “scramble for the Pacific” to gain control of deep-sea mineral resources through exploration contracts—not dissimilar to the colonial scrambles for control of Nauru when its rich phosphate reserves were discovered by the Pacific Islands Company in 1889 [68]. China has led the way in this “scramble,” holding five DSM contracts, more than any other country [22]. This has raised concerns over the supposed reduction of China’s dominance in mineral supply chains from DSM. In addition, international opposition against DSM has grown over the past decade, with 32 countries in support of a moratorium, precautionary pause, or ban on DSM until there is adequate scientific information on the deep-sea ecosystem, posing another threat to TMC’s accumulation strategies [69].
Figure 6 Deep-sea mining supply chain and associated activities within each phase. Source: Based on ECORYS [70] and TMC [71].
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In the face of growing opposition to DSM and an increasingly volatile minerals market, TMC has also adopted another commodity marketing strategy linked to more stable mineral markets to influence the DSM commodity frontier. TMC has increasingly emphasized the potential of DSM to stabilize and reduce prices of minerals on international markets [72]. The potential additional supply of minerals from PMNs, with a higher ore grade (less waste) and multiple minerals in one nodule, could have a positive economic effect on international markets by reducing metal prices and export prices of metal products [73]. As suggested by a TMC representative (#4), “a lower cost metal base will allow more people to use those metals and transition, whether it be into the middle class or into a renewable energy future that we need.” Cheaper mineral supplies from nodules could also benefit mineral-rich developing countries by reducing their mineral exports to international markets, thereby stimulating the sale of these materials on the domestic market for cheaper prices, meaning that domestic downstream industries can source cheaper raw material to then produce finished products at a lower price than would otherwise be possible [74]. In reality, the additional mineral supply volumes from DSM activities are likely to lead to serious adverse effects on mining-dependent developing economies, such as the DRC, because of increased competition in the market, with producers’ survival depending on their level of profitability at a particular commodity price [74]. Furthermore, the proposed reduced ‘costs’ of minerals entirely overlook the value of nature and do not account for the appropriation of the unpaid work of extra-human natures in forming the nodules at the deep seabed over millions of years [75]. Instead, the value of these nodules is derived from socially determined matrices of produced needs and wants for addressing the climate crisis through the exploitation of “cheap nature.” Hence, drawing on neoliberal discourses of win-win situations through emphasizing the market benefits and solution to the mineral shortages of the green transition, TMC draws upon the blue economy agenda to conceal the exploitation of “cheap nature” in the deep sea.
4.3. Development

Aside from TMC’s strategies focused on the decarbonization imperative and geopolitical security concerns to shape the DSM commodity frontier, TMC has also tapped into the blue economy notion of presenting DSM as a sustainable development opportunity for PSIDS. Under the blue economy agenda, the UN adopted Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 in September 2015, which aims “to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development” [76]. TMC has capitalized upon this SDG and contends that its DSM projects are fully aligned with this goal [77]. The company argues that its investments in DSM provide PSIDS with “an opportunity to participate in the benefits of this new resource opportunity to diversify and develop their economies” [68]. This is particularly important for Nauru, which faces structural development challenges including its small size, remoteness, limited resource and export base due to colonial phosphate mining, isolation from markets, diseconomies of scale, and capacity limitations [78]. DSM in the CCZ offers potentially significant financial benefits to the country as it is expected to receive a payment linked to the quantity of nodules recovered from the NORI-D exploitation contract area as per its sponsorship agreement with NORI [79]. For Nauru, the economic potential of DSM is perceived as a way to move away from reliance on volatile fishing license revenues and overseas development aid, as stressed by Nauru’s President Adeang in the most recent ISA meeting: “deep-sea mining is not just an opportunity for us but necessity for our survival” [80]. However, the derived economic benefits of the NORI-D project to Nauru are highly uncertain as they are still under negotiation at the ISA meetings. This has evoked neo-colonial critiques from several NGOs who argue that DSM is currently functioning as “a form of colonization where new companies are running the agenda for small island developing states” (#7). By framing DSM as a form of equitable resource allocation, TMC masks a historical narrative of exploitation and unequal power dynamics. Such dynamics were present in Nauru in the first half of the 20th century when the island was ecologically ravaged by colonial powers who engaged in the aggressive extraction of Nauru’s cheap, high-quality phosphate deposits to then be “metabolized” to produce food for export and domestic consumption in agro-industrial colonial-settler societies [29]. A similar asymmetric relationship can be observed between TMC and Nauru as shown by the unequal distribution of financial benefits from DSM, which despite being publicly undisclosed, are likely to amount to less than 1% of the total estimated value of the mined material based on its agreement with Tonga for a similar DSM project (#9). There are also concerns surrounding the extent of involvement of Nauru and other PSIDS as sponsoring states working with TMC, and whether the DSM projects are “effectively controlled by…nationals,” as foreseen by UNCLOS [81,82]. As NORI is a TMC subsidiary, Nauru does not have ownership of any minerals mined, so would not directly benefit from their sale. Therefore, it is evident that TMC has collaborated with Nauru to exert its superior economic power to exploit the country’s access to areas of the CCZ, reminiscent of the colonial exploitation of Nauru’s phosphate reserves in the 20th century.

This neo-colonial relationship between TMC and Nauru over DSM is also demonstrated by the pressure TMC exerts on Nauru. This was demonstrated by the controversy surrounding Nauru’s decision to trigger the “two-year rule” provision of the UNCLOS in 2021, which obliged the ISA to finalize and adopt regulations for DSM by July 2023 [82]. While it is impossible to ascertain the extent to which TMC influenced Nauru’s decision to trigger the rule, it can be inferred that TMC influenced Nauru’s decision to some extent, given the pressure it was under from shareholders to begin commercial production and dwindling cash reserves (#9). However, Nauru strongly denies any suggestion that the decision was not its own and has sought to align its actions with TMC’s commodity-widening strategies to expand the DSM commodity frontier. In a Nauru Government statement, the Government stated that they have a “duty to the international community to carry out this request” and to ensure that “polymetallic nodules are considered as part of the solution for the global transition” [83]. Echoing the words of this statement, when asked about the triggering of the two-year rule, NORI representatives (#5 and #6) said it was undertaken “for Nauru and the planet” and stated that “the entire planet will really benefit from the resource.” Such statements resonate with TMC’s commodity marketing strategies linked to decarbonization and can be perceived as an exchange-side attempt by TMC to shape the commodity frontier by providing economic certainty to stakeholders, as Nauru’s action occurred just a few months before TMC began trading on the Nasdaq Market in September 2021 [84].

Conclusions

This article has explored the unfolding of the DSM commodity frontier in the Pacific Ocean. Drawing from a world ecology approach, it has demonstrated how TMC has attempted to use production strategies centered around the green transition, geopolitics, and development to expand the emerging DSM commodity frontier in the CCZ. In doing so, the article has highlighted how the blue economy agenda has facilitated the expansion of the DSM commodity frontier in the CCZ by enabling firms to deploy commodity widening, deepening, and marketing strategies in DSM projects such as the NORI-D project. Focusing on this project has exposed the neo-colonial structures of unequal ecological exchange embedded in capitalism’s ecological regimes as they pertain to the Republic of Nauru. It has also highlighted how security concerns are increasingly coming to the fore, in addition to the traditional notions of the blue economy centered around climate change and economic growth.

While the article has highlighted the specificities of the NORI-D project, it points to broader policy issues concerning DSM governance and the ongoing socio-ecological injustices related to the energy transition. In particular, the expansion of the DSM commodity frontier in the Pacific highlights the urgent need to question the value of nature within the broader political economy of green extractivism—can we afford to exploit another ecosystem whose value we do not understand? Many mining companies, such as TMC, ignore such questions and operationalize the blue economy agenda to discursively justify the exploitation of “earth’s final frontier” as a way to address climate change, security concerns, and development needs [85]. Furthermore, the article has also exposed how island communities’ perceptions and preferences toward DSM in the Pacific continue to be neglected by the ISA and policymakers. Considering the historical legacies of commodity frontiers in Nauru, as well as other PSIDS, authorizing any kind of DSM operations under the current state of governance must be interpreted as a form of neo-colonial extractivism, diametrically opposed to the concept of sustainability. Therefore, a moratorium on DSM activities in international waters should be imposed until the environmental, social, and governance issues outlined in this article have been resolved.

There have been several limitations of this article, including the use of the NORI-D project as a single case study for the generalization of the dynamics of the DSM commodity frontier in the Pacific, given that there are heterogeneous views toward DSM across PSIDS. Our findings are not necessarily analogous to other DSM projects in other regions, such as those in the Indian Ocean or activities within countries’ EEZs, such as the suspended Norwegian project, which could lead to different outcomes. Future research should seek to address the fundamental issues concerning the neoliberal agenda of the ISA and formulate policy solutions that transcend the neo-colonial extractivist logic of the DSM industry. We suggest that instead of opening a new extractive frontier, policymakers should focus on the implementation of circular economy solutions to land-based minerals, minimizing waste and extraction principally through reducing mineral demand and recycling solutions. As the ISA’s mining code nears completion, the deep sea must not become another zone of capitalist extraction but a space to foster a new sense of ecological justice. As President Whipps of Palau stated at the most recent ISA meeting in July 2024, “The deep seabed… is a treasure to be held in trust for future generations, not a commodity to be exploited by any nation state or corporation” [86].

James Murphy, Rowan Gard

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