Koinon Consulting's documentation on the economics and governance of deep-sea mining — studies, models and data, most recent first.
6 August 2026
How twelve fast-moving months have reshaped deep-sea mining in the Cook Islands — the ownership of the exploration licences, a framework signed with the United States, and a shifting critical-minerals policy environment — and what it could mean for how the Cook Islands governs the industry. The bigger picture emerges from the interaction between the US framework and the company restructuring, not from either alone. A note for candidates, civil society and media; it makes no recommendation.
- What has changed in deep-sea mining — and what it could mean for Cook Islands governance study
- The licences changed hands through a NASDAQ-listed merger (Odyssey Marine → American Ocean Minerals) that reorganises who holds two of the three Cook Islands exploration licences — filed with the SEC in May 2026 and amended in August.
- A perpetual private royalty on gross proceeds now ranks ahead of most state income — payable whether or not the project ever turns a profit, and assigned out of the group for a secured note rather than cash.
- A non-binding framework with the United States (Feb 2026) remains unpublished; alongside it, US development finance could route an investor dispute to a federal agency, outside the courts named in the licence.
- Governance has been strong for the exploration stage — all three licences published in full, more than the ISA manages — but none of it carries forward automatically to exploitation, and no model mining licence is yet public.
20 July 2026
Koinon Consulting's financial analysis of proposed deep-sea mining in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone: the Discussion Paper, the model behind it, and the underlying data.
The Discussion Paper
- Case Not Proven — The Economics of Deep-Sea Mining PDF · 76pp
Can deep-sea mining pay? Case Not Proven tests whether extracting polymetallic nodules from the Clarion-Clipperton Zone would deliver net financial benefit to the international community, to sponsoring States, and to potential investors themselves. Taking Proponent TMC's own NORI-D and TOML figures and stress-testing the cost, production, price and governance risks across 10,000 Monte Carlo simulations, Koinon finds the case is not proven — across the realistic range of outcomes the activity tends to destroy more public value than it creates, at every material level of production and robust to the discount rate applied.
- Median NPV of −$5 billion at an 8% discount rate, against the Proponent's stated +$23 billion.
- Loses money in 83% of outcomes at 8%, rising to 96% at 12% and 99%+ at higher rates.
- Never reaches payback 61% of the time.
- Median rate of return of 4% where one can be computed, against the Proponent's 27% — short of the 30%+ hurdle a frontier asset of this risk would command.
- Capital-cost overrun is the single largest driver of the downside.
- Terrestrial tax losses (~$1.9bn) exceed ISA revenue (~$1.1bn) in a peak year, concentrated on developing producers such as South Africa, Indonesia and the DRC.
- Sponsoring States realise little: no corporate income tax in 48% of outcomes, and late, low-value where it does arise.
Model & data
- Deep-sea mining financial model XLSX · open
The open financial model behind the Discussion Paper — a FAST-standard discounted cash-flow with a Monte Carlo engine of 10,000 runs, built on the IGF's 2023 and 2026 framework — applying configurable fiscal regimes to the Proponent's NORI-D and TOML project data to trace how value splits between investors, the ISA and sponsoring States.
