Cook Islands SBMA grants first seabed mineral exploration licences in Pacific EEZ

Mechanism

The Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Act 2019 (SMA 2019) established the regulatory framework for licensing, environmental management, and royalty governance of seabed mineral activity in the Cook Islands EEZ and Extended Continental Shelf. The SBMA, the independent regulator created by the SMA 2019, ran the first licensing round and on 14 February 2022 formally granted five-year exploration licences to three applicants:

1. Cook Islands Cobalt (CIC) Limited — a joint-venture vehicle in which Odyssey Marine Exploration (NASDAQ: OMEX) holds approximately 14.2% equity. CIC initiated offshore exploration and research operations in 2022 and has been conducting bathymetric mapping and nodule sampling on its licence block.

2. Moana Minerals Limited — a subsidiary of Ocean Minerals LLC (OML), in which Odyssey holds approximately 6.28% equity. OML completed a full mapping of its licensed area and recovered a five-tonne bulk nodule sample for metallurgical process development.

3. CIIC Seabed Resources Limited — a Cook Islands Investment Company vehicle; limited public disclosure of its operational status as of mid-2024.

The SMA 2019 imposes multi-year plans of work, mandatory environmental impact assessments, and compliance with local-content and benefit-sharing obligations before any extraction licence can be granted. Exploration licences expressly prohibit commercial extraction.

The formal granting ceremony was held on 23 February 2022 at the Cook Islands Parliament.

Resource scale and strategic context

The Cook Islands EEZ (~1.96 million km²) sits atop one of the world's largest documented polymetallic nodule accumulations. A JORC-compliant resource estimate published by the SBMA in April 2023 placed total indicated + inferred resources at approximately 6.7 billion wet tonnes — cobalt-rich nodules at grades competitive with terrestrial laterite deposits. Key minerals include cobalt (rechargeable-battery cathode), nickel, copper, manganese, niobium, zirconium, and rare earth elements.

In October 2025 the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) approved a Cook Islands claim to approximately 350,000 km² of additional seabed from the Manihiki Plateau, further extending the jurisdiction's mineral estate beyond the standard 200 nm EEZ.

ISA precedent and geopolitical context

The Cook Islands EEZ licences are distinct from ISA-area deep-sea mining contracts (which govern the Area beyond national jurisdiction under UNCLOS Part XI). Cook Islands exercises full sovereign jurisdiction over its EEZ seabed, and the SMA 2019 is wholly domestic legislation. However, the SBMA framework is closely watched by the International Seabed Authority as a governance template, and by ISA-sponsored entities such as The Metals Company (TMC) — which holds Nauru-sponsored reserved-area contracts in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone — as a parallel Pacific critical-minerals development track.

November 2025 extension

On 13 November 2025 the SBMA confirmed via Commissioner Beverly Stacey-Ataera that no licensee had completed its approved plan of work within the initial five-year term, and that all three operators would be invited to apply for licence renewal. A further five-year extension to February 2032 was confirmed. The independent Licensing Panel will evaluate all renewal applications before any renewal is formally granted.

Downstream implications

• Cobalt and nickel: Cook Islands nodules could represent a new non-terrestrial supply node

for battery-cathode material, potentially diversifying supply away from DRC cobalt (which accounts for ~70% of global production) if commercial extraction is eventually authorised.

• Odyssey Marine (OMEX) holds exposure across two of the three licences; any commercial

extraction authorisation post-2032 would be material to its equity.

• The SBMA SMA 2019 framework is being watched by Kiribati, Tuvalu, and Federated States

of Micronesia as a model for their own potential licensing rounds.

Open questions

• Whether any licensee will achieve plan-of-work completion milestones sufficient to trigger

a serious extraction-licence application after 2032.

• Cook Islands government stance: there is a strong in-country moratorium lobby; the extension

to 2032 is partly a political deferral rather than a purely technical decision.

• Whether the ISA's eventual adoption (or rejection) of Exploitation Regulations will affect

the Cook Islands domestic framework's attractiveness to investors.