Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese ambassador Zhou Limin after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Company fell through.
“The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said on Monday evening in a statement.
Pacific nations Kiribati, Cook Islands and Nauru sit at the forefront of a highly contentious push to mine the depths of the ocean.
Kiribati holds rights for deep-sea mining exploration across a 75,000-square-kilometre swathe of the Pacific Ocean.
Through state-backed subsidiary Marawa Research, Kiribati had been working with Canada-based The Metals Company to develop the area’s mineral deposits.
That agreement was terminated “mutually” at the end of 2024, The Metals Company told AFP.
The Metals Company said Kiribati’s mining rights were “less commercially favourable than our other projects”.
The firm is racing to win regulatory approval that would make it one of the first companies to mine international waters on an industrial scale.
It has partnerships with Kiribati’s Pacific neighbours Nauru and Tonga.
Members of the International Seabed Authority are currently meeting in Jamaica to thrash out the rules for deep-sea extraction.
China and Cook Islands struck a five-year agreement in February to cooperate in exploring the Pacific nation’s seabed mineral riches.
The deal did not include any exploration or mining licence. (AFP)
