American Deep Sea Minerals
American Deep Sea Minerals Inc. is a Delaware corporation formed in 2025. It has one asset, an application to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for an exploration license over 101,064 km² of the South Penrhyn Basin, in the pocket of high seas surrounded by the exclusive economic zones of the Cook Islands, Kiribati and French Polynesia.
It is the smallest and least corporate of the United States applicants. The application was signed by Graham Goulet, the company’s president, chief executive, founder and sole principal shareholder, and states that the company had not completed a full fiscal year when it was filed.
News and articles
| Date | Headline |
|---|---|
| 2026-09-15 | Burgum Says US Deep-Sea Mining Permits Could Come Within Months |
Overview
- The application is dated November 2, 2025 and was made under 15 CFR Part 970, the regulations that implement the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act.
- NOAA found it fully compliant with the Act’s information requirements and published it in the Federal Register on June 2, 2026.
- A virtual public hearing was held on July 1, 2026 and written comments closed on August 3, 2026.
- No license has been issued. This is an application.
- The application reports an average nodule abundance of 27 kg per square metre across the area, which it converts to an estimated 147 million dry tonnes of nodules. That is an application estimate, not a resource classified to a reporting standard.
- The proposed program is four years of exploration, one cruise a year, covering mapping, coring, sampling and environmental baseline work.
- The company states it is committed to United States ownership and control, citing Executive Orders 13953 and 14285.
- It says it has not decided whether to pursue commercial mining, which would need a separate NOAA permit.
The application
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Applicant | American Deep Sea Minerals Inc., a Delaware corporation |
| Sought | Exploration license under 30 U.S.C. 1412 and 15 CFR part 970 |
| Area | 101,064 km², about 25 million acres |
| Location | The South Penrhyn Basin of the South Pacific, beyond national jurisdiction, bounded by the exclusive economic zones of the Cook Islands, Kiribati and French Polynesia |
| Abundance | An average of 27 kg/m², stated in the application as an estimated 147 million dry tonnes |
| Filed | November 2, 2025 |
| Federal Register notice | June 2, 2026 |
| Public hearing | July 1, 2026 |
| Comments closed | August 3, 2026 |
| Docket | NOAA-NOS-2026-0892 |
| Status | Under review, no license issued |
The ground matters for two reasons. It is the only United States application outside the Clarion-Clipperton Zone apart from American Ocean Minerals’ Penrhyn area, and Penrhyn Basin nodules are the cobalt-rich, rare-earth-bearing kind rather than the nickel-rich Clarion-Clipperton kind. The application benchmarks its ground against the two licenses inside the neighboring Cook Islands zone, Moana Minerals at about 23,615 km² and CIC Limited’s area.
Filing first also mattered. NOAA has told American Ocean Minerals that an earlier applicant holds priority of right over the northern half of its own Penrhyn application, filed on November 26, 2025, which is 24 days after this one.
Ownership
The application’s statement of ownership says the corporation is controlled by its sole founder and principal shareholder, Graham Goulet, who is also its president and chief executive. No other holder is named and no percentages are filed. The company describes its funding as founder equity plus early-stage investment, with the four-year exploration program to be paid for out of founder equity and equity raises it has not yet completed.
Listed exposure
There is none. The company is private, has a single shareholder of record, and no listed company has disclosed an interest in it.