Minerals Report - International Seabed Authority

former case a reminder notice is sent out that usually get a favourable
response while the latter may result in the licence being terminated or not
renewed.
A major difficulty confronting the Government is not so much with
reporting but auditing the report and the actual work undertaken during the
term of an exploration licence. An audit will assist the Government to
determine how much money was actually spent on exploration and how
much on other expenses including overheads.
Currently there is deficiency in the capacity to undertake this auditing
task. As a consequence, a consultant is anticipated to be engaged to fill this
capacity gap and to transfer the know-how under the Institutional
Strengthening Project to be funded by the World Bank in the next few years.
As regards data and information reporting requirements in the
offshore there are only two licences held by the same company. While the
reporting requirement is governed by the Mining Act 1992 for the time being it
is really a dilemma to ascertain what constitutes exploration in the offshore.
As these two licences are in the process of renewal , no more could be said at
this stage.
However, it would be noted that the situation will become clearer if
there were clear definitions of marine mineral exploration and marine
scientific research as most of the resource data generated to date are from
MSR. Unfortunately no help can be found in the UNCLOS. Perhaps as a
passing remark this may be an aspect that the Legal and Technical Committee
of the International Seabed Authority may wish to take up in the near future.
6. Conclusion
Offshore prospecting and exploration are relatively difficult given the
unique ocean environment. It follows that conventional data and information
reporting requirements may not necessarily apply.
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