A major regulatory win sent The Metals Company (TMC) shares up more than 7% on Friday. But even as investors cheered the news, a newly merged rival is quietly building a case to steal the crown.
The catalyst came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which ruled that TMC’s deep‑seabed mining application is fully compliant. The decision pushes the company’s project in the Pacific’s Clarion Clipperton Zone one step closer to a final permit, potentially by early 2027.
TMC’s application now moves into a certification phase. It will be published in the Federal Register, followed by a draft Environmental Impact Statement for public comment, before NOAA makes its final call.
CEO Gerard Barron called the ruling “an important step forward in NOAA’s transparent, rules‑based process,” pointing to years of scientific and engineering work behind the application. The company recently submitted nearly a decade of exploration data – collected between 2013 and 2022 across the eastern CCZ, from the ocean surface down to more than 4,000 metres – to the International Seabed Authority’s DeepData platform.
On the resource front, TMC’s consolidated application now covers about 65,000 km², up from roughly 25,000 km² in its 2025 filing, with an estimated 619 million tonnes of wet nodules and room for more.
In January, NOAA revised the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act, merging exploration licences and commercial recovery permits into a single process – a change that could shorten the regulatory timeline.
Shares jumped to as high as $5.62 in early trading before settling at $5.43, giving TMC a market value of around $2.3 billion.
Yet for all of TMC’s momentum, another name is rapidly gaining ground.
Earlier this month, American Ocean Minerals and Odyssey Marine Exploration announced a definitive merger agreement valued at about $1 billion. The combined company will retain the American Ocean Minerals name and trade on Nasdaq under the ticker AOMC.
The new entity has two clear advantages on paper.
First, its chairman is Tom Albanese, former CEO of Rio Tinto – one of the world’s largest mining companies. In a nascent industry riddled with regulatory and operational unknowns, that kind of heavyweight experience is rare. TMC, by contrast, lacks a leader with comparable credentials.
Second, and more importantly, the resource base. According to a preliminary economic assessment, American Ocean Minerals will gain access to licensed areas around the Cook Islands containing 417 million metric tonnes of indicated resources and over 2 billion metric tonnes of inferred resources. Its U.S.‑governed exploration areas add another 1.4 billion metric tonnes of inferred resources.
TMC, for comparison, has reported 51 million metric tonnes of probable reserves, plus measured, indicated and inferred resources totalling an additional 113 million metric tonnes.
Even accounting for the inherent uncertainty of inferred resources, the scale gap is striking.
Neither TMC nor American Ocean Minerals has started commercial production. For now, both remain bets for investors with a high tolerance for risk. Still, both are advancing their projects. And if deep‑sea mining truly disrupts the traditional mining industry, either could deliver substantial returns.
But based purely on the numbers available today, TMC – despite its hard‑won regulatory victory – no longer has the resource size or management edge to claim the title of undisputed leader. The crown may be up for grabs.
