India in undersea race to mine world’s battery metal

India is taking another step in its quest to find valuable minerals hidden in the depths of the ocean which could hold the key to a cleaner future.

Countries including China, Russia and India are vying to reach the huge deposits of mineral resources - cobalt, nickel, copper, manganese - that lie thousands of metres below the surface of oceans.

The ISA's legal and technical commission has sent a list of comments and questions about this to the Indian government, according to a document seen by the BBC.In response to the other application - to explore the cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts of the Afanasy-Nikitin Seamount in the Central Indian Ocean - the commission has noted that another unnamed country has claimed the seabed area as part of their extended continental shelf and asked India for a response.

Whatever the outcome of the applications, one thing is clear: India does not want to fall behind in the race to secure critical minerals from the bottom of the oceans.

"The Indian Ocean promises tremendous potential reserves and that expanse has motivated the government of India to increase its scientific exploration of the ocean's depths," says Nathan Picarsic, co-founder of Horizon Advisory, a US-based geopolitical and supply chain intelligence provider.

In 2022, India collected some polymetallic nodules from the Indian Ocean as part of a trial.

India has a short-term target of increasing its renewables capacity to 500 gigawatts by 2030, and meeting 50% of its energy requirements from renewables by then, with the long-term goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2070.To meet these targets, experts say India will need to secure critical minerals from all possible sources including the deep seabed.

India has also signed an agreement with Russia to develop deep-sea mining technologies.

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