India to become leader in offshore mining as govt amends legislation

India will become the leader in offshore mining as not many countries have done much in this area, a government official said on Tuesday.

Offshore mining is the process of retrieving mineral deposits from the deep seabed, at a depth of more than 200 metres.

Speaking at the Critical Minerals Summit here, Joint Secretary in Ministry of Mines, Veena Kumari D said the government has amended the offshore mining legislation.

"We have done amendment to the Act for offshore mining and we are working on the rules for that and India will be the leader in offshore mining because not many countries have done much of offshore mining and we were working on it since August 2023," she added.

Mines Secretary V L Kantha Rao in his address on Monday had said that the auction of offshore mines will begin in three months' time.

The Offshore Areas Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act, 2002 has been amended to provide an auction route for awarding production leases for offshore minerals.

"Currently, we are making rules. We are making seven types of rules under that Act to ensure that we can auction offshore mineral blocks. We have got 15 blocks explored by GSI (Geological Survey of India)... we have to do inter-ministerial consultations," the government had earlier said.

Offshore mining is the process of retrieving mineral deposits from the deep seabed, at a depth of more than 200 metres. In the process, poly-metallic nodules, including precipitated iron oxy-hydroxides and manganese oxides, onto which metals such as nickel, cobalt, copper, titanium and rare earth elements gather, are sorted, and unwanted sediments are flushed back into the sea.