India plans dive for rare earths at the bottom of Arabian Sea

At a time when nations are scrambling for rare earths and critical minerals following the Chinese clampdown, India is preparing to approach a United Nations agency for permission to scout for them in the Arabian Sea. In parallel, the government is also working on the technologies to extract and process these vital raw materials.

- BY S VENKAT NARAYAN

The application for exploration rights to a 10,000 sq. km area, to be submitted to the International Seabed Authority (ISA), aims to reduce dependence on global supply chains dominated by China. It will also mark an expansion of India’s deep-sea operations. The ISA is a UN body governing mineral-related activities in international waters.

India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) has already been allocated two areas in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea of 0.75 million sq. km and 10,000 sq. km, respectively. The allocation is under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

India has done an exploratory survey and found polymetallic nodules that contain cobalt, nickel, copper, manganese in one of the allocated areas in the central Indian Ocean. In the other area, south of the mid-Indian ocean ridge which is below Mauritius, India has found copper, cobalt, platinum and gold. The goal is to now commercially mine these minerals and prove that the process is environmentally safe, Earth Sciences Secretary M. Ravichandran said.