In a vast storage room at a nickel plant in Hachinohe, northern Japan, a group of men in suits and hard hats are squatting on the floor admiring a row of trays. One contains a jet-black, rubble-like ore, which crumbles to dust when handled. In another, there are bright cubes of metal, which they are examining enthusiastically.
These men, traders from commodities powerhouses Mitsubishi Corporation and Glencore, as well as managers from Chinese and Korean metals groups and the Japanese battery producer Panasonic Energy, have been assembled by the Canadian mining group The Metals Company (TMC). The ore had been sucked up from the seabed roughly 4,000 metres beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean before being shipped here to be melted down and processed. The company is eager to show off its wares.
“With the same energy, we can get more materials: nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese,” says Daisuke Sasaki, a representative of Pacific Metals, which owns the plant. “It’s more economic and environmental than land-based mining.”