VISAKHAPATNAM: The National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) has been accorded permission by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) to carry out offshore mining in the central Indian Ocean in an 18,000 sq km area. Estimates of sites and metal availability has been done and a vast reservoir of metals, such as, copper, cobalt, nickel, manganese have been found offshore that are not commonly found on land, NIO-CSIR director Sunil Kumar Singh said on Monday.

NIO regional centres are also working in the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea to extract resources for gas hydrates (methane). Studying the sources of iron in the ocean is another area of focus, as globally 30%-40 % of the ocean lacks iron, impacting its productivity, Prof Singh said.

Elaborating on the mining project, Prof Singh said, “The research on offshore poly-metallic nodules (PMN) has been going on for the last two decades. NIO has estimated that around 100 million metric tonnes of metals are available in 75,000 sq km area in the Central Indian Ocean near the equator. The ISA has permitted us to undertake mining in 18,000 sq km area. We are developing the technology to extract the PMNs, including iron, manganese, copper, cobalt and nickel. Other than iron, which is available in abundance in land, the rest of the minerals are not commonly available onshore. Therefore, extracting these minerals from the sea assumes significance.”

Another area of research, which has a huge potential is offshore gas hydrates. National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) and NIO has found methane reserves in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea area in shallow depths within six-seven metres. “There is an enormous rich resource of gas hydrates — nearly 2,000 trillion cubic metres, which can take care of energy supply for the next 100 years or so if they can be tapped,” said Prof Singh.

Oceanic biogeochemistry is another field of research. It has been found that 30%-40% of the oceans lacks iron and are hence zones of low productivity despite availability of other minerals and food. “NIO has started a study on the sources of traceable iron in the ocean that can be as a result of hydrothermal activity, subducted ocean plates and from oxygen minimum zones in Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea,” said GPS Murthy, principal scientist in charge of NIO, Visakhapatnam.