Sensing China threat, India joins Sri Lanka in race for seabed mining; applies for exploration rights

Contact Counsellor

Last Updated28/03/2024

Earlier this month, India applied to the International Seabed Authority (ISBA), Jamaica, for rights to explore two vast tracts in the Indian Ocean seabed that aren’t part of its jurisdiction.
The application to explore one of these regions, a cobalt-rich crust long known as the Afanasy Nikitin Seamount (AN Seamount), is a gambit by India.

Rights to the region have already been claimed by Sri Lanka under a separate set of laws.
- But India’s application is part-motivated by reports of Chinese vessels undertaking reconnaissance in the same region.
The AN Seamount is a structural feature in the Central Indian Basin, located about 3,000 km off India’s coast.
For any actual extraction to happen, interested explorers - in this case, countries - must apply first for an exploration licence to the ISBA.
- An autonomous international organisation established under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

These rights are specific to areas that are part of the open ocean, meaning ocean — whose air, surface and sea-bed — where no countries can claim sovereignty.
Around 60% of the world’s seas are open ocean and though believed to be rich in a variety of mineral wealth, the costs and challenges of extraction are prohibitive.
- Currently, no country has commercially extracted resources from open oceans.
However, another UNCLOS-linked body, the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, may impede India’s exploration ambitions.
Countries have exclusive rights up to 200 nautical miles, and its underlying sea-bed from their borders.
Normally, claims to the continental shelf do not extend beyond 350 nautical miles from their coast.
“However, there is a provision under which countries along the Bay of Bengal can apply a different set of criteria to make claims on the extent of their continental shelf.
Using this, Sri Lanka has claimed up to 500 nautical miles.