November 12, 2026 — Two U.S. companies have applied to the U.S. government for seabed mining exploration licenses in two large patches of international waters near the Cook Islands, Kiribati and French Polynesia in the South Pacific Ocean. Local government officials and environmental organizations are pushing back.
The applications are part of a broader move by U.S. companies to stake claims to the international seabed through a controversial U.S. permitting process. The process bypasses the U.N.-linked multilateral body tasked with regulating deep-sea mining activities on the high seas and protecting the marine environment.
Beyond the two South Pacific sites, U.S. companies are also seeking rights through this process to large seabed blocks in international waters near Guam in the western Pacific and in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a vast area between Hawai‘i and Mexico, a recent Mongabay investigation showed. Most of these areas harbor polymetallic nodules, avocado-sized rocks that contain nickel, manganese, copper, cobalt and other minerals.
In the South Pacific, Delaware-incorporated American Deep Sea Minerals, Inc. (ADSM) and Florida-based American Ocean Minerals Corporation (AOM) have both applied to the U.S. government to explore areas of the seabed for their mining potential, with a view to eventually extract and sell seabed minerals.
Their plans focus on two areas: a 101,064-square-kilometer (39,021-square-mile) pocket of international waters bounded by the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of the Cook Islands, Kiribati and French Polynesia; and a 89,645-km2 (34,612-mi2) area south of the Cook Islands’ EEZ.