The Metals Company (Nasdaq: TMC) has reached another regulatory milestone after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published a Notice of Intent (NOI) in the Federal Register to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for its subsidiary TMC USA’s USA-B exploration licence application.
The NOI marks the next stage in NOAA’s review process under the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (DSHMRA) and follows the agency’s certification of the USA-B application on 26 May 2026.
The USA-B licence area covers approximately 122,000km² of seafloor in the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ) of the Pacific Ocean. According to the company’s August 2025 technical report, the area contains an estimated 1.02Bt of polymetallic nodules rich in nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese, and a range of rare earth elements.
NOAA’s EIS process will include the release of a draft EIS and proposed terms, conditions, and restrictions for public comment. Following the consultation period, the agency will review submissions, finalize the EIS, and make a determination on whether to issue the exploration licence.
Gerard Barron, CEO and Chairman of The Metals Company, commented: “The publication of this Notice of Intent is another milestone in NOAA’s methodical review process. We welcome the opportunity to participate in a rigorous Environmental Impact Statement process that invites public input and builds on more than a decade of our own environmental research and engineering, alongside 50 years of environmental research and a dozen other commercial and academic disturbance tests in the CCZ. As we’ve said from the beginning, good regulation should be transparent, predictable and grounded in rigorous baseline studies and impact assessment, and today’s announcement demonstrates that process is continuing as intended.”
Alongside the USA-B application, TMC USA is also advancing its USA-A project, for which it submitted a consolidated application for an exploration licence and commercial recovery permit in January 2026. NOAA determined that application to be fully compliant in April 2026.
The company noted that it and its partners have spent more than a decade collecting scientific, environmental, and engineering data related to polymetallic nodules and deep-sea ecosystems in the CCZ. According to TMC, independent researchers have published 41 peer-reviewed studies based on data collected from the eastern CCZ, with additional research expected as exploration activities continue.
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