Minerals Report - International Seabed Authority
Minerals Report - International Seabed Authority Minerals Report - International Seabed Authority
8. Modelling SMS mining offers scope for a highly compressed development cycle. The time between first identifying a plume and tracking down a deposit, and the time of mining the deposit can be very short, a factor that will also carry considerable economic advantage. ‘With the mobility of the production vessel, test mining can be conducted within a matter of weeks of a discovery. On land, the definition drilling required to justify the cost of a test shaft will typically take two years and then test shaft will take additional time. By lowering such development threshold, the feasibility costs are also expected to be significantly lower than for terrestrial mines. Using very basic assumptions and calculations about the most likely system we will use, Nautilus has performed some very useful spreadsheet models for a proposed Manus Basin mining operation. We regard these models as proprietary assets so I do not intend to present them here. But for the sake of illustration, one base case involved an arbitrary mine size of 1.5Mt and at the rate of 1000tpd, the mine life will be 4.5 years. The following chart shows the summary of net cash flow and cumulative net cash flow for this scenario. Capex costs include the acquisition of a ship for US$50m. INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY 342
9. The Environment Issues and Benefits Proposals to mine zinc, copper and gold from SMS deposits are driven by investor belief that this type of mining will be more profitable that terrestrial mining. Similarly, there is a belief that they may also be competitive in terms of environmental impact. Modern man’s diet of metals and a wide range of other materials such as diamonds, mineral and building sands, and aggregates have already shown the ability to substitute marine sources for terrestrial sources. To this extent, mining has already started in the marine environment and learning about its impact has already advanced. In a holistic view, substituting marine sources for terrestrial sources may offer a way to limit the net environment impact of winning these materials. SMS mining can reasonably be expected to have at least two major environmental advantages. First, high grades mean a low proportion of waste will be produced. Terrestrial mines, the alternative source of the metals, produce increasingly high proportions of waste and by far the greatest amount of liability faced by terrestrial miners is the result of tailings related disasters, and acid mine drainage from waste dumps. Secondly, in active SMS deposits, it has been shown that hundreds of tonnes of mineralization are likely to be generated every year in the wake of mining. As long as the heat and fluid emissions continue to provide an oasis in this cold dark world, life will return to it. The more that we understand deep vent fauna; the more we see that they depend primarily on the presence of heat, H2S and fluid emissions alone. The spatial and temporal discontinuity of the production of these life-sustaining nutrients has made vent fauna voracious survivors. Perhaps only the cold and relatively lifeless deposits will be economically attractive. With every year comes new discoveries adding to our growing archive of active vent sites and the perception that these are a far more frequent marine environment than was once imagined. INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY 343
- Page 300 and 301: y mining, which is expected to be v
- Page 302 and 303: 2. J. B. Corliss, J. Dymond, L. Gor
- Page 304 and 305: 19. V. Tunnicliffe, A.G. McArthur a
- Page 306 and 307: SUMMARY OF THE PRESENTATION AND DIS
- Page 308 and 309: together with mucus that is secrete
- Page 310 and 311: close to neutral ph conditions, it
- Page 312 and 313: France, Germany, the United Kingdom
- Page 314 and 315: of the sedimentary column, whereas
- Page 316 and 317: Table 2: Research Submersibles and
- Page 318 and 319: 4. Technical Requirements For resea
- Page 320 and 321: 5. Processing Technologies The phys
- Page 322 and 323: grow on substrate rocks because of
- Page 324 and 325: 5. M.D. Hannington, A.G. Galley, P.
- Page 326 and 327: Dr. Herzig informed participants th
- Page 328 and 329: search for sites of hydrothermal ve
- Page 330 and 331: with such a grab. In addition to th
- Page 332 and 333: Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) D
- Page 334 and 335: equired to make sure that the ship
- Page 336 and 337: Dr. Herzig summarized the technical
- Page 338 and 339: commercial. Since confidentiality o
- Page 340 and 341: CHAPTER 8 FACTORS IN FINANCING EXPL
- Page 342 and 343: The traditional project stages that
- Page 344 and 345: there is a subset that forms in spe
- Page 346 and 347: of competing for the attention of i
- Page 348 and 349: 7. Why SMS Mines will be Lower Cost
- Page 352 and 353: Because exhalative SMS deposits are
- Page 354 and 355: SUMMARY OF THE PRESENTATION AND DIS
- Page 356 and 357: flow to the metal markets. He also
- Page 358 and 359: shortage in the next couple of year
- Page 360 and 361: starts, the operation could take pl
- Page 362 and 363: Based on this and other considerati
- Page 364 and 365: Mr. Malnic said that the mining ope
- Page 366 and 367: and silver. Except for volcanically
- Page 368 and 369: 2.2. Major Features of the Draft Of
- Page 370 and 371: As a general principle the fiscal p
- Page 372 and 373: I think the issue is not as simple
- Page 374 and 375: Table 3: Data and information requi
- Page 376 and 377: former case a reminder notice is se
- Page 378 and 379: 6. Elisabeth Mann Borgese, Ocean Go
- Page 380 and 381: longer an area is held, more inform
- Page 382 and 383: from the deep sea. One group of enz
- Page 384 and 385: CHAPTER 10 NATIONAL AND INTERNATION
- Page 386 and 387: times greater than atmospheric pres
- Page 388 and 389: Fig. 2 Schematic diagram showing th
- Page 390 and 391: Figure. 4: Distributions of hydroth
- Page 392 and 393: Figure 6: Distributions of hydrothe
- Page 394 and 395: Figure.8: Plot of incidence of hydr
- Page 396 and 397: et al., 1998) - one of the two very
- Page 398 and 399: seabed but, instead, are dispersed
9. The Environment Issues and Benefits<br />
Proposals to mine zinc, copper and gold from SMS deposits are driven<br />
by investor belief that this type of mining will be more profitable that<br />
terrestrial mining. Similarly, there is a belief that they may also be<br />
competitive in terms of environmental impact.<br />
Modern man’s diet of metals and a wide range of other materials such<br />
as diamonds, mineral and building sands, and aggregates have already<br />
shown the ability to substitute marine sources for terrestrial sources. To this<br />
extent, mining has already started in the marine environment and learning<br />
about its impact has already advanced. In a holistic view, substituting marine<br />
sources for terrestrial sources may offer a way to limit the net environment<br />
impact of winning these materials.<br />
SMS mining can reasonably be expected to have at least two major<br />
environmental advantages. First, high grades mean a low proportion of waste<br />
will be produced. Terrestrial mines, the alternative source of the metals,<br />
produce increasingly high proportions of waste and by far the greatest<br />
amount of liability faced by terrestrial miners is the result of tailings related<br />
disasters, and acid mine drainage from waste dumps.<br />
Secondly, in active SMS deposits, it has been shown that hundreds of<br />
tonnes of mineralization are likely to be generated every year in the wake of<br />
mining. As long as the heat and fluid emissions continue to provide an oasis<br />
in this cold dark world, life will return to it. The more that we understand<br />
deep vent fauna; the more we see that they depend primarily on the presence<br />
of heat, H2S and fluid emissions alone. The spatial and temporal discontinuity<br />
of the production of these life-sustaining nutrients has made vent fauna<br />
voracious survivors.<br />
Perhaps only the cold and relatively lifeless deposits will be<br />
economically attractive. With every year comes new discoveries adding to<br />
our growing archive of active vent sites and the perception that these are a far<br />
more frequent marine environment than was once imagined.<br />
INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY 343
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