Deep Sea Mining Sector.
Constrained with low or no development potential
Overview.
Deep Sea Mining (DSM) presents potential high‑value industrial and revenue opportunities for Southeast Asia as demand for transition minerals rapidly increases, but it also carries major ecological, governance, and social risks. Interest in extracting polymetallic nodules, seafloor massive sulphides, and cobalt‑rich crusts reflects the region’s strategic location near resource‑rich deep‑ocean areas and the growing global demand for minerals used in electric vehicles, renewable‑energy technologies, and digital infrastructure. Yet the sector remains highly uncertain, with no commercial operations globally and significant concerns about environmental impacts, monitoring challenges, and limited scientific understanding of deep‑sea ecosystems.
Across ASEAN, engagement with DSM is currently shaped by mixed levels of readiness, fragmented governance arrangements, and a lack of coordinated regional frameworks. Countries participate in international seabed governance through the International Seabed Authority (ISA), with Singapore holding an exploration contract in the Clarion–Clipperton Zone and several ASEAN states sitting on ISA bodies. While exploration activities advance under UNCLOS and ISA rules, many ecological, regulatory, and technical uncertainties persist, including gaps in ocean science, limited monitoring capacity, and questions around liability, benefit‑sharing, and long‑term ecosystem effects. Growing calls for precautionary pauses reflect widespread concerns that premature development could jeopardise biodiversity, coastal livelihoods, and food systems, particularly where extraction activities may interact with fisheries, conservation priorities, and transboundary marine processes.
Within this wider sustainability and governance landscape, DSM intersects with shipping, fisheries, marine science, conservation agencies, and coastal and island communities because exploration and extraction activities rely on offshore engineering, ocean‑data systems, shared marine space, and regional governance mechanisms. These cross‑sector dynamics shape ecological risk, community wellbeing, and strategic planning across ocean uses, placing DSM at the centre of debates on critical‑mineral supply, circular‑economy pathways, and the need for precautionary, science‑based stewardship to protect marine ecosystems and sustain long‑term development options for ASEAN.
Explore how Deep Sea Mining is positioned for each of the
Blue Economy Capitals.
Financial Capital.
Financial Capital.
Financial capital behind DSM is still pre-commercial and highly tentative, with no large, region-wide investment programme in place. This includes an active exploration contract held by Ocean Mineral Singapore for polymetallic nodules over 58,280 km² in the Clarion–Clipperton Zone, sponsored by Singapore (ISA, 2015; 2024; 2025). Public documents emphasise this as R&D/exploration rather than full commercial investment, and no ASEAN government has (so far) announced multi-billion-dollar capex for mining in “the Area”.
Independent economic assessments suggest that any commercial polymetallic-nodule project would require multi-billion-dollar financing (Hidayat, 2025). A single DSM project may require USD 4–6 billion in total capital and operating costs, with recent nodule project studies estimating around USD 4–5 billion in capex for offshore collection and onshore processing (Sumaila et al., 2023; Van Nijen et al., 2018). Even if mining proceeds, aggregate fiscal gains for ISA member states are expected to be modest, with per‑member benefit‑sharing of about USD 42,000 to USD 7.35 million annually, typically at the lower end (Amadi & Mosnier, 2024). These figures do not reflect sponsoring‑state revenues, which depend on domestic tax and royalty regimes and are highly uncertain (Amadi & Mosnier, 2024; Lodge & Bourrel‑McKinnon, 2022). This implies that ASEAN treasuries face high financial risk and very modest expected revenue from sponsoring contractors.
Looking ahead, ASEAN policy documents treat DSM as an “emerging area” rather than a mature investment field. The ASEAN Minerals Cooperation Action Plan promotes cooperation and capacity-building for “sustainable mineral development,” including offshore mining, but it does not yet create a dedicated ASEAN DSM fund or financing facility (ASEAN, 2024). ASEAN’s financial capital for DSM remains nascent, centred on one regional contractor and reliant on global markets, with most regional initiatives still focused on policy exploration and capacity-building rather than major investment (Vivoda et al., 2025).
Physical Capital.
Physical Capital.
At the ASEAN level, the physical capital for DSM remains limited and is concentrated in exploration rather than full mining infrastructure. The only concrete industrial-scale asset in “the Area” linked to an ASEAN state is OMS, which holds an ISA exploration contract (2015–2030) for polymetallic nodules in the Clarion–Clipperton Zone (CCZ), covering 58,280 km² (ISA, 2019). ISA’s public-information template for that contract shows that OMS’ current physical capital is mostly exploration-stage hardware: research cruises (e.g. the ABYSSLINE campaigns), use of a 6,000 m-rated AUV, ROVs, box corers, epibenthic sleds and other benthic sampling gear, plus advanced survey technologies such as multi-AUV systems, gliders and satellite-supported mapping (ISA, 2015; 2019). These assets are primarily designed for baseline data collection, environmental assessment, and resource characterisation rather than mineral extraction.
The same document notes that OMS and Singapore’s Keppel–NUS Corporate Laboratory are actively developing proprietary technology, including patents for a “subsea ROV hub” and an “apparatus and method for seabed resources collection”, which represent early ASEAN-linked steps toward mining-system components, rather than just scientific instruments, although these remain at the design and development stage (ISA, 2019).
Studies of the OMS contract area (e.g. Chuar et al. 2025) confirm repeated use of this survey infrastructure to collect >100,000 biological and sediment samples, underlining that ASEAN’s physical capital is currently concentrated in research vessels, monitoring platforms, and sampling systems, not production-scale collectors or riser ships (Chuar et al., 2025; ISA, 2019).
At the same time, global engineering-geology reviews stress that no commercial DSM system has yet been commissioned anywhere, with technology still at the pilot-test stage in a handful of non-ASEAN countries (Japan, Korea, China, Europe) (Guo et al., 2023). This implies that ASEAN’s DSM physical capital remains pre-commercial: one large exploration area, a growing suite of survey and environmental-monitoring tools, and some early mining-system designs and patents, but no integrated production chain combining collector vehicles, riser systems, and surface production vessels (ISA, 2025; Seeberg-Elverfeldt & Kaede, 2025; Blanchard et al., 2023).
ASEAN DSM therefore continues to emphasise capacity building, scientific collaboration, and the potential for future joint projects, rather than concrete commitments to deploy mining hardware, indicating that near-term initiatives remain focused on R&D infrastructure and training rather than heavy industrial investment (Vivoda et al., 2025).
Human Capital.
Human Capital.
Across ASEAN, building human capital for deep sea minerals governance within government institutions requires strengthening legal, scientific, and negotiating capabilities so that countries can actively shape, rather than merely follow, the ISA regime. This includes developing officials who are able to draft regulatory language, critically assess environmental and financial provisions, and articulate national positions across the Council, the Assembly, and the Legal and Technical Commission, particularly as the Mining Code for exploitation is finalised amid ongoing debates over environmental thresholds, benefit sharing, liability, inspection regimes, and test mining modalities (ISA, 2024; IISD‑ENB, 2024; ISA‑LTC, n.d.).
In terms of status and progress, Indonesia has increased its capacity and influence with a 2024–2026 Council seat and substantive Assembly interventions that stress balancing development with environmental protection (Fachri, 2023; Government of Indonesia, 2023). The Philippines has moved from awareness to institution building, hosting a national ISA capacity workshop to align domestic sponsorship law with UNCLOS and securing a Filipino commissioner on the LTC (Dr. Mario Aurelio), embedding expertise inside ISA’s technical engine room (Philippine News Agency, 2023; DFA Philippines, 2025). Singapore remains the most established ASEAN actor, pairing an active Ocean Mineral Singapore exploration contract in the CCZ (2015–2030) with sustained policy/academic convening via NUS CIL to feed science policy talent into its delegation (ISA, 2026; CIL‑NUS, n.d.). By contrast, most other ASEAN members retain a low profile at ISA and ASEAN instruments only lightly touch seabed mining, leaving gaps in regional coordination and specialist cadres for REMPs and EIS review (ISA, n.d.; Liliansa, 2024). Overall, progress is tangible but uneven. Indonesia and the Philippines are making notable gains alongside Singapore’s more established presence. As negotiations continue through the ISA’s twenty ninth and thirtieth sessions, targeted investment in negotiators, marine scientists, and sponsoring state regulators will be critical in determining how effectively ASEAN can influence the final Mining Code and its associated standards (IISD‑ENB, 2024).
Human-capital base for DSM of ASEAN remains small but is slowly expanding through targeted training and capacity-building programmes. ISA’s Capacity Building Dashboard does not provide a pre-aggregated ASEAN total for the Contractors’ Training Programme (CTP); users must filter by each ASEAN country to compute a subtotal (ISA, 2026). Publicly documented country figures confirm that 18 Filipino nationals have benefited from ISA capacity-building programmes since the start of the contractor training scheme (DFA–Philippines, 2023). At the regional scale, the same dashboard records 93 Asia Pacific CTP participants over 1994–2024, so the ASEAN subtotal must be ≤ 93 pending a full country-by-country tally (ISA, 2026). Taken together, these sources bound the current ASEAN trainee count between 18 (Philippines alone) and 93 (Asia Pacific total) until a complete sum is computed from the dashboard filters (DFA–Philippines, 2023; ISA, 2026). If helpful, I can compile the precise ASEAN total by applying the dashboard’s CTP filter for Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam and summing the results (ISA, 2026).
A key government-linked actor is OMS, which under its ISA exploration contract for polymetallic nodules is required to provide training opportunities to developing states. OMS’s latest programme (issued July 2025) offers ten Master’s fellowships in Marine Science at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia for the 2026 intake (one-year, coursework-based), with the explicit aim of building advanced skills in marine ecology, oceanographic data analysis and biogeochemistry for candidates from developing states, including ASEAN (ISA, 2025a; ISA, 2025b). Earlier, OMS partnered with the National University of Singapore to offer short-term internships for trainees from developing countries, again focused on geological and environmental aspects of polymetallic-nodule exploration (ISA, 2022c).
Regionally, the ASEAN–BIMSTEC Workshop on Deep-Seabed Resources and the Blue Economy (2019) in Nay Pyi Taw, organised with the ISA, aimed to raise awareness and build legal, scientific, and environmental capacity related to activities in “the Area.” Its programme explicitly included sessions on ISA capacity-building initiatives and “Capacity Building in ASEAN and BIMSTEC Regions” (ISA, 2019). However, academic analysis shows capacity remained limited, with only 14 trainees from five ASEAN states participating in ISA programmes by 2018, reflecting low awareness of seabed-mining law, limited institutional engagement, and constraints in funding and access to technology (Nugroho & Putranti, 2018).
ASEAN policy instruments acknowledge this human-capital gap, with the ASEAN Minerals Cooperation Action Plan (2026–2030) calling for a strategic framework for minerals capacity-building, including offshore mining and DSM, as well as regional training programmes, technical exchanges, and conferences (ASEAN, 2024). Taken together these initiatives indicate that ASEAN’s DSM human capital remains concentrated in a relatively small expert pool, but new fellowships, internships, workshops, and regional frameworks are beginning to form a structured pipeline for expanding specialised skills and institutional knowledge across the region.
Social Capital.
Social Capital.
ASEAN as a bloc, the social capital around DSM is still emergent and relatively thin, but a small number of regional networks, dialogue platforms, and coordination mechanisms are beginning to form. ASEAN’s 2023 Blue Economy Framework treats the blue economy as an integrated, cross-sectoral agenda and identifies mineral and DSM as activities requiring strong regulation, precaution, and inclusive stakeholder engagement (Ramli & Waskhito, 2023; March et al., 2024). The Framework is being implemented through the ASEAN Coordinating Task-Force on Blue Economy, which promotes cross-sectoral cooperation with government agencies, industry, academia, and civil society on blue economy issues, including offshore mining, and held its first meeting in August 2024 (Wanichkorn, 2025).
Beyond ASEAN’s own processes, the ISA–Myanmar ASEAN & BIMSTEC Workshop (2019) on Deep-Seabed Resources and the Blue Economy in Nay Pyi Taw brought together government officials, legal experts, researchers, and industry partners from ten states to discuss roles and environmental protection in “the Area,” and recommended further steps to strengthen regional participation and coordination in deep-seabed governance (ISA, 2019). Despite ASEAN’s existing minerals and marine forums (such as AMMin/ASOMM, AWGCME, and the ASEAN Minerals Cooperation Action Plan) none provide a purpose‑built, region‑wide regime for DSM in the “Area” beyond national jurisdiction (Liliansa, 2024; ASEAN, 2021). As a result, ASEAN still lacks a shared political position and comprehensive DSM framework, leaving member states to pursue divergent national approaches and limiting coordinated engagement at the ISA (Liliansa, 2024; IISD-ENB, 2024).
Natural Capital.
Natural Capital.
Ecologically, much of maritime Southeast Asia lies within the Coral Triangle, a 5.7–6 million km² marine ecoregion recognised as the global centre of marine biodiversity, hosting around 76% of reef-building corals and more than 2,200–3,000 reef-fish species, and supporting the food security and livelihoods of more than 120 million people with an estimated marine GDP of about USD 1.2 trillion annually (Britannica, 2025). This concentration of biodiversity makes the region’s marine natural capital particularly valuable and sensitive to cumulative and cross-sectoral pressures.
At deeper levels, ASEAN states border the West Pacific Seamount Province, where cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts up to ~260 mm thick occur on seamounts at 400–4,000 m, containing around 70% of global crust resources and indicating large regional stocks of cobalt, nickel, copper, and rare-earth elements (Hwang et al., 2024). UNEP-FI’s synthesis of DSM risks notes that the western Pacific hosts roughly 1,200 seamounts and guyots that may be of commercial interest, many of which lie in or adjacent to Southeast Asian EEZs (UNEP Finance Initiative, 2022). ISA Technical Study 8 notes that cobalt-crust seamounts host distinct, slow-growing and often endemic benthic communities, making them ecologically significant but highly vulnerable natural-capital assets due to low recovery potential following disturbance (ISA, 2020).
Government-linked studies indicate potential hydrothermal sulphide and Fe–Mn oxide deposits in the South China Sea and off southern Viet Nam, and suggest that Indonesia’s under-explored offshore areas may host additional deep-sea mineral resources, underscoring that the true scale of ASEAN’s deep-sea mineral resource base remain uncertain pending further surveys (Guo et al., 2023). In brief, the mineral resource base within national jurisdictions remains uncertain due to limited exploration and baseline data.
Finally, the ASEAN Minerals Cooperation Action Plan (AMCAP-IV) 2026–2030 explicitly identifies offshore mining and DSM as an emerging focus area. The plan includes actions on marine geoscience, mineral resource assessment, and environmental baseline studies, signalling that near-term regional efforts are focused on systematically characterising both mineral potential and associated deep sea ecosystems before any decisions on exploitation are made taken (ASEAN, 2024).
Assessment of Capacity for Growth
Assessment of Capacity for Growth
CONSTRAINED
(low or no growth in production)
Deep Sea Mining involves extracting minerals, such as copper, nickel, and cobalt, from deposits found on the ocean floor, including polymetallic nodules, seafloor massive sulphides, and cobalt‑rich ferromanganese crusts, typically at depths of 400–6,500 m (Kaack, 2024). In some cases, projects also target rare earth elements. The rationale centres on securing metals needed for the energy transition. Manufacturing electric vehicle batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels relies on minerals including lithium, cobalt, manganese, nickel, copper, and zinc. The IEA reports that the energy sector is driving sharp increases in demand, including a tripling of overall lithium demand, an increase of around 70 percent for cobalt, and approximately 40 percent for nickel. It also cautions that delays in clean energy projects could put the goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050 at risk (Alberts, 2023). Southeast Asia is considered a potential location for DSM due to significant mineral deposits in its deep waters and the strategic location of ASEAN states near resource-rich areas of the western Pacific.
While states have sovereign rights over resources within their own EEZs and on their continental shelf, much of the current interest in polymetallic nodules lies beyond national jurisdiction, in international waters (‘the Area’), where exploration and mining rights are administered by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) (Kaack, 2024). No commercial DSM is yet operating globally; activities remain at the exploration and testing stage under the framework of UNCLOS and under the oversight of the ISA (Nugroho & Putranti, 2018). As of 31 March 2025, 30 exploration contracts were in force (19 for polymetallic nodules, 7 for polymetallic sulphides, and 4 for cobalt‑rich ferromanganese crusts) and each contractor must submit an annual activity report to the Secretary‑General by the end of March (ISA, 2025).
Within the ISA system, ASEAN’s presence is primarily represented by Singapore through Ocean Mineral Singapore (OMS), which holds a 15-year ISA exploration contract (since 2015) for polymetallic nodules in the Clarion–Clipperton Zone. Although Singapore is not formally classified as a Small Island Developing State, the ISA lists it among six SIDS-designated sponsoring States (ISA, 2024; OMS, 2015). Several ASEAN members (Indonesia, Singapore, Viet Nam, and the Philippines) sit on ISA bodies, giving the region a degree of representation within global seabed governance (ISA, 2023; 2024). However, there is no regional‑level DSM governance in place to date (Liliansa, 2024). The current DSM frameworks could be improved by adopting a coordinated, precautionary, science‑based regional stance (e.g., an ASOMM–ASOEN task force, model safeguards, and aligned BBNJ/UNCLOS implementation) and by leveraging members’ roles at the ISA (Cassotta & Goodsite, 2024; Diplomatic Academy of Viet Nam, 2024; Liliansa, 2024). At the same time, global scientific and policy literature stresses major ecological uncertainties and growing calls for precautionary pauses on DSM. These debates are particularly salient for ASEAN, given the region’s reliance on marine ecosystems for food security, livelihoods, and coastal development, and its growing engagement in blue economy planning, and the need to manage interactions across sectors that share ocean space (Blanchard et al., 2023; Sharma, 2024). Without coordination, deep-sea mining activities could create knock-on effects for fisheries, conservation, tourism, and other ocean-dependent sectors, complicating planning and governance across scales (Dowd et al. 2025).
Despite rising global interest in seabed minerals, DSM in ASEAN remains fully pre-commercial, with no active extraction in national waters or in “the Area” under ASEAN sponsorship. Significant technological, financial and human capacity gaps, coupled with regulatory uncertainty and high environmental risks, means that increasing production is neither feasible nor advisable in the near term. ASEAN’s current strengths lie instead in exploration, scientific research, environmental baseline studies and governance capacity-building, especially as the region’s deep-sea mineral endowments remain poorly mapped and many ASEAN marine ecosystems, including those linked to the Coral Triangle are highly sensitive to disturbance.
Rather than pursuing early exploitation, ASEAN’s near-term growth potential lies in non-extractive pathways, including regional scientific cooperation, strengthened environmental monitoring systems, and participation in ISA-linked capacity-building initiatives to enhance legal, technical, and regulatory expertise. Emerging blue economy finance mechanisms, such as baseline-assessment grants, technology and R&D partnerships, and sustainable-investment taxonomies, offer opportunities to advance marine science infrastructure and regulatory innovation without committing to extraction. Coordinated action through ASEAN’s Blue Economy Framework and future ASEAN Minerals Cooperation Action Plan can further improve knowledge-sharing, risk management, and strategic positioning. Through these pathways, ASEAN can play a leading role in precautionary, science-based seabed governance, generating long-term environmental, economic, and institutional value for the region while avoiding the risks associated with premature commercial mining.
