SIMIC

MAERSK, the world second biggest shipping company after MSC, is selling its stake in deep-sea mining firm The Metals Company (TMC), even as the legal process to allow seabed mining approaches its final stages, reports the Wall Street Journal.

It now holds an interest of less than 2.3 per cent in TMC and is in the process of selling all of its shares. The shipping company held more than nine per cent in 2021, and has been an investor in the company since 2017.



TMC is one of the biggest proponents of deep-sea mining and is the most active company within the space, being the first to complete pilot testing.



In June 2021, the company along with the Republic of Nauru set in motion talks for deep sea mining to be legalised when it applied to the UN-backed International Seabed Authority to mine in the Pacific Ocean.



The practice has garnered attention because of the potential to harvest battery metals such as cobalt and nickel from rocks on the seafloor.



Seabed mining raises the prospect of additional supplies to alleviate expected shortfalls while proponents also argue it could mitigate concerns from other sources, such as humanitarian issues with cobalt mining in the Congo and environmental issues with nickel mining in Indonesia.