Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Deep Sea Mining, a globally respected critical mineral trade journal, has listed American Samoa as a leading global candidate to develop an Electric Vehicle critical mineral receiving and refining industry.

Phillip Gales, a noted Deep Sea Mining industry expert says in the recent article that American Samoa’s physical proximity to abundant subsea critical minerals and excellent industrial marine harbor infrastructure makes the US territory a likely location for an Asia Pacific receiving and refining hub for manganese, cobalt and copper.

Gales also noted the American Samoa Economic Development Council has signed a development memorandum of understanding with the environmental and technology responsible deep sea mining company, Impossible Metals LLC.

In addition to American Samoa, Gales lists Japan, Norway, Sweden, India, Cook Islands and Saudi Arabia as candidates for energy transition industry development.

BACKGROUND

Polymetallic nodules typically occur on the deep abyssal plains of the world's oceans, and have been positively sampled from a wide range of locations across various EEZs in the South Pacific.

While American Samoa EEZ is essentially unexplored for cobalt-rich crusts, (and) nodules... environments are present that offer targets for likely mineral occurrences." James Hein, of the USGS says.

The Samoan Basin is relatively uniform and between 5000-6000m deep, suggesting good conditions for the formation of polymetallic nodules.

Research and analysis of various licensing regimes in different countries reveals that the path to successfully issuing subsea mineral exploration licenses is relatively long, and various components are required in order for it to be successful.