Economical conditions of seabed mining

• Published in: Metalurgija Vol. 45; no. 3; p. 257
• Main Authors: Rybar, P, Domaracka, L
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.07.2006
• ISSN: 0543-5846

Economical studies assumes annual exploitation of one prospector from 700 thousands ton to 3 millions ton from seabed deposit of polymetalic concretions, it means from 210000t to 900000t of manganese, or 8400t to 36000t of nickel. This parameters presents for manganese from 2 to 10% of the present annual worldwide consumption and for nickel form 0,7 to 3% of the consumption. Experts predicts that capital investments for polymetalic concretions exploitation would between 542 to 700USD.t-1 and operational costs would be from 75 to 160USD.t-1. From these entries results that capital investments are moving in the interval 400 millions to several bilions USD and annual operational costs from 50 to 500 millions USD in dependence of exploited quantity. In Interoceanmetal (IOM) were in the beginning of the ninties made technical and economical studies, but it is questionable if they satisfy requirements of expert study. We are sure, that Slovakia has to take in consider that the only alternative, how to gain ore raw materials is to exploited them from the seabed and the only alternative is IOM, so Slovakia has to have its own expert study.