A new seabed minerals frontier emerges
American Samoa is emerging as a new potential frontier for seabed minerals, joining global players like Japan, India, and Norway in the race to commence seafloor mineral extraction. In April,…
Posts by Ronny Setså
“Dark oxygen” paper receives more criticism
Even though the scientific paper was published during the summer holiday, it has garnered significant attention from various media outlets and the scientific community. Evidence of dark oxygen production at…
A frontrunner in deep-sea minerals
The Norwegian deep-sea mineral community closely followed the talks from Nagase Kunpei and Kiyotaka Orita of the Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC) during the Deep Sea Minerals…
Exploring for gas – for the first time
“We have practically never looked for gas in the Barents Sea. All exploration wells have had oil as their target, and all discoveries of gas have been accidental”, said Dag…
386 blocks
It is 59 years since Norway announced the first round of hydrocarbon concessions for the Norwegian continental shelf. At that time, the offer included 278 blocks south of the 62nd…
Drilling on the seabed
The deep sea is pitch dark, but the two ROVs provide plenty of “working light” for the drilling machine that is standing on the seabed in the hilly, inhospitable terrain…
An accidental discovery of a large mineral deposit
The aim of the drilling operation was to learn more about subsurface water circulation by drilling into a fault. But when operations began on the selected topographical high along the…
Finding deep sea minerals with oil and gas technology
“With conventional exploration for oil and gas, electromagnetic measurements (EM) are used to map resistivity in prospects – hydrocarbons are more resistive than brines. When we are looking for minerals,…
Lots of activity but limited resource growth
Every year in January, the Norwegian Offshore Directorate – which until the turn of the year was called the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate – summarizes the activities on the Norwegian continental…
Norway opens for seabed mineral activities
The final step in a years-long process was made in the Norwegian Parliament on January 9th, 2024. The four largest political parties, representing a strong majority, voted to open an…
What moves a grain?
Plume dispersion is not solely a matter of distance from the mine site, physical processeses are also important”, said Thomas Peacock, professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at the…
Norway is getting a new marine industry
The governing parties, the Labour Party and the Center Party, together with the Conservative Party and the Progressive Party, have secured a majority in parliament on the opening of mineral operations…