Mining in the deep sea is the next frontier for the offshore industry, which will be challenged to move farther from shore to reach resource deposits at water depths often exceeding those of oil and gas operations. The three types of resources that can be found on or just below the seabed at depths between 800 and 6,000m, are considered by several countries as an alternative source of critical minerals that could reduce the reliance on a single producer and thus unfavourable dynamics in raw material supply.
A comparison of value chains of both deep sea mining and oil & gas revealed a substantial overlap in the exploration and production phases. This suggests that there exist possible business opportunities for Italian companies working in the oil & gas supply chain to provide their products and services also in this new industry. Furthermore, the Italian maritime research community has in the past years gained valuable experience and could therefore actively contribute to further development of very important aspects of the nascent industry, such as resource assessment, environmental monitoring and mining risk assessment. On the other hand, research equipment and vessels could be usefully employed throughout the entire mining campaign to not only monitor, but also support resource exploitation.
A combination of advanced research capabilities in the maritime field and a strong, well established oil & gas supply chain could form a basis for providing technological solutions also in deep sea mining. To this end, it is proposed that a cluster of select companies and research institutes is formed around Key Public Institutions such as MISE and Assomineraria with the objective of creating an Italian mining contractor.
