Deep-Sea Mining 2025: ASX & TSXV Leaders Navigating the Ocean Minerals Frontier

Electrification has gone from trend to baseline, with EVs, grid-storage and renewable build-outs demanding orders of magnitude more nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese than legacy supply chains were designed for. Ocean nodules and cobalt-rich crusts promise a new geography of supply—metals that sit on or near the seabed floor, loosely attached and potentially harvestable by remotely operated collectors feeding risers to a surface production vessel.The strategic logic is simple: diversify supply chains, reduce over-reliance on a handful of onshore jurisdictions, and—if life-cycle analysis pans out—target lower waste footprints than some terrestrial routes. The policy reality is not as simple: the ICS/ISA system must write a Mining Code that can credibly protect fragile abyssal ecosystems, satisfy member states, and stand up to litigation and public scrutiny. In 2025, that tension is at its peak.(isa.org.jm)The ISA Assembly described its 30th session as “landmark,” noting historic decisions and progress on the Mining Code; meanwhile, the Council completed the second reading of the draft code, revealing significant divergences remaining.(Twin Politics, isa.org.jm )The “two-year rule”—triggered by Nauru in June 2021—pushed the Council to work toward exploitation regulations by July 2023, a deadline that passed without adoption; negotiations have continued through 2024–2025.( IISD Earth Negotiation Bulletin, ScienceDirect)

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