Sea Bed Polymetallic Nodules
Government of India signed a 15 year contract with International Seabed Authority (ISA) for exploration of polymetallic nodules from Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB) in 2002. In written replies to questions by members in the Lok Sabha today, the Union Minister of State for Science & Technology and for Earth Sciences Shri. Y.S.Chowdary said, the polymetallic sulfides are expected to contain rare earth minerals including gold and silver. The Government of India has an area of 75000 sq km in the Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB) and close grid bathymetric surveys have been carried for Polymetallic Nodules in this area. A Test Mine Site (TMS) has been tentatively identified within the First Generation Mine Site (FGMS) for further detailed studies. Seven cruises were undertaken to collect scientific data and samples pertaining to polymetallic sulfides along Central Indian Ridge (CIR) & Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR) region of the Indian Ocean in the year 2012-13. Based on the outcome of these surveys, India submitted an application for exclusive rights of exploration of polymetallic sulfides at a site of 10000 sq km along CIR & SWIR in Indian Ocean in 2013, which was approved by International Seabed Authority (ISA) in 2014.
As a part of development, a crawler based prototype shallow bed mining system has been developed and demonstrated at a water depth of 512 m. Extraction of copper, nickel and cobalt from polymetallic nodules has been demonstrated in a pilot plant with a capacity to process 500 kg nodules per day at Hindustan Zinc Limited, Udaipur.
Oceanographic Research vessels Sagar Kanya, Sagar Sampada, Sagar Manjusha and Sagar Nidhi of Ministry of Earth Sciences, Samudra Ratnakar of Geological Survey of India (GSI), Ministry of Mines and Sindhu Sankalp and Sindhu Sadhana of National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Council of Scientific & Industrial Research are deployed for ocean research.
The minister said the programme is at a stage of developing relevant technologies for harvesting polymetallic nodules lying at 4000m to 5000m water depth. Initial estimated resource of polymetallic nodules in the site retained by India in the Central Indian Ocean Basin is about 380 Million Metric Tonne (MMT) with 0.55 MMT of Cobalt, 4.7 MMT of Nickel, 4.29 MMT of Copper and 92.59 MMT of Manganese. However, the actual estimates will vary depending upon the new results of detailed survey and exploration coupled with results of test mining of nodules upon developing the mining technology, he added.
Exploration of Gas Hydrates has also been carried out by conducting 3D seismic survey in the Krishna-Godavari and the Mahanadi basins.
