The Race to Mine the Ocean is Heating Up

India has applied to the International Seabed Authority (ISA) for two new licenses to explore parts of the Indian Ocean sea bed for minerals crucial to the green energy transition. If they are granted, India would hold four contracts, making it the country with the second highest number of active contracts for deep sea mining exploration projects in the world. As Statista's Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, based on ISA data, China currently has five contracts, making it the leading country in terms of contracts for permitted deep sea mining…