Government to amend off­shore mining law

Government to amend off­shore mining law

Subject: Economy

Concept:

• The Ministry of Mines is planning to map offshore mineral blocks to mine polymetallic nodules.
• This follows the Ministry’s efforts to open up the sector to private miners after bringing in amendments to the Offshore Area Mineral (Development & Regulation) Act, 2002.
• Composite License – Exploration­ cum­ production licences will also be offered once the proposed amendments go through.
• However, Mining of atomic minerals will, however, remain under State control and will not be opened up to private miners.

Offshore Areas Mineral (Development and Regulations) Act

• In 2002, the Parliament passed the Offshore Areas Mineral (Development and Regulations) act.
• This Act aims at the development and regulation of mineral resources on specific marine territories such as territorial waters, exclusive economic zone, continental shelf, and other maritime zones of India.
• However, the act officially came into effect from 15th January 2010, vide an order dated 11th February 2020 notified by the Central Government.
• The Act provides mandates for all minerals in offshore areas. Even minerals listed under the Atomic Energy Act, 1962, are included in the said Act.
• However, it excludes oils and related hydrocarbons. Oils and hydrocarbons though are offshore minerals are dealt with under separate legislation.

Current procedure for offshore mining

• The government currently allocates off­shore production leases for blocks containing higher­ grade atomic minerals, such as uranium and zircon to state ­controlled entities.
• However, the proposed amendments will allow production leases to be granted to the private sector and state ­controlled firms through auction route.
• The proposed amendment give powers to central government to fix the threshold value, above which the allocations will be given to state controlled entities.

Polymetallic Nodules and formation

• Polymetallic nodules, also known as manganese nodules, are potato-shaped, largely porous nodules found in abundance carpeting the sea floor of world oceans in deep sea.
• Besides manganese and iron, they contain nickel, copper, cobalt, lead etc which are of economic and strategic importance.

Formation :

• Formed by slow precipitation of the metallic components from seawater.
• This is thought to produce nodules with similar iron and manganese content and a relatively high grade of nickel, copper and cobalt.
• Location:
• Three areas have been selected by industrial explorers: the centre of the north central Pacific Ocean, the Peru Basin in the south-east Pacific Ocean and the centre of the north Indian Ocean.
• They can occur at any depth, but the highest concentrations have been found between 4,000 and 6,000m.

Significance of Polymetallic Nodules:

• They contain Rare Earth Elements and metals which are important to high-tech industries.
• The amount of copper contained in the CCZ nodules is estimated to be about 20% of that held in global land-based reserves.
• These Rare earth minerals are considered as the great source of valuable minerals such as gold, silver and zinc.