Trump wants to “unleash” deep-sea mining. How soon could it start?

That depends on more than the whims of any one government or company

Since Trump took office, a flurry of news – from the executive order, to mining applications in both federally controlled and international areas – makes it feel like miners could start hauling up nodules any minute now.

The Metals Company (TMC) is pushing especially hard. They view Trump as a fast-track to mining approval on the High Seas. And the company hopes to start commercial extraction while Trump is still in office. (TMC had worked through the ISA for years, in partnership with Nauru, to develop a mining project in the Clarion Clipperton Zone. Then it instead applied to the Trump administration for permission to mine that same lease area. The ISA is not happy.)

But even with a motivated company and a permissive U.S. government, it’s not clear how soon mining could begin. One reason for that: TMC’s mining system only exists on paper.

Commercial extraction requires a nodule collector more than twice the size of the pilot vehicle used in TMC’s 2022 tests, according to Allseas, the company that engineers TMC’s mining system. “Everything needs to be scaled up,” said Allseas’ Corporate Communications Manager, Jeroen Hagelstein. (Allseas is a major shareholder in TMC.)

The riser pipe that whisks the nodules up from the seabed needs to be enlarged. And the surface vessel, the Hidden Gem, needs major retrofitting, including an expanded hold for storing nodules. “That whole system needs to be built and developed,” said Hagelstein.

He estimated the effort would take more than a year to complete. And that’s only once the shipbuilder starts working on it.

“The basic engineering is done,” said Hagelstein. But “we are waiting for the greenlight” to begin construction. That means regulatory approval from the U.S. government.

“It’s quite an investment that we have to make here,” said Hagelstein. “So we have to be certain about it.”

But regardless of how the U.S. permitting decision comes down, certainty is not a given.

Allseas faces pushback from politicians in Switzerland, where the firm is headquartered. (Switzerland has called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining.) The ISA has also called on the Netherlands, a member state hosting Allseas’ engineering operations, to prevent the firm’s participation in a mining project that lacks ISA approval.

These pressures may not be enough to influence Allseas’ behavior. But they’re a reminder of how even a single mining project, like TMC’s, depends on buy-in from an entire ecosystem of corporate contractors and governing authorities. So even if the U.S. government approves TMC’s application today, mining isn’t going to start tomorrow.