Key points
- UK Seabed Resources, a Lockheed Martin UK subsidiary, holds a licence to explore 58,000 square kilometres of the Pacific’s Clarion Clipperton Zone for polymetallic nodules.
- The planned recovery system builds on 1980s Lockheed Martin architecture originally developed through a 1970s Lockheed-led consortium that invested $500 million and logged thousands of geolocated nodule samples.
- The proposed process uses multiple seabed nodule collectors feeding a central pump, which sends nodule slurry up a riser pipe to a surface ship for transfer to dynamically positioned bulk carriers and onward to a metallurgical processing plant.
- Processing byproducts include rare earths for high-tech uses and manganese for steel production, which the company says could benefit the UK economy for the next 30 years.
