TMC’s Broken Promises
The table below outlines the sequence of milestones publicly declared by The Metals Company (TMC). These reveal a pattern of repeated failures, illustrating the persistent gap between TMC’s marketing to investors and the regulatory, technical and legal realities of seabed mining.
| Date | TMC's Goal | TMC Quote | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2, 2020 | Aiming for mid-2023 | The EIS will be “completed by around the middle of 2022, and so we'll then lodge our application, and the regulator has 330 days to give us an answer, and hopefully we'll then be into business." | Gerard Barron, interview with Crux Investors, October 2, 2020, "Deep Sea Mining Just Got Sexy." Timestamp 32:57. |
| Dec 7, 2020 | Target 2024 | So (the acquisition of these assets) means that we can be in business pretty quickly. And our target is to be collecting nodules and turning them into metals in 2024. | Gerard Barron, interview with Crux Investors, December 7, 2020, "DeepGreen Metals - Ready-made Battery Metals Solution." Timestamp 34:23. |
| May 17, 2021 | 2024 | “2024: Contract: ISA-NORI. Commercial production: P0, 1Mtpa nodules. PFS & FS. Construction, P1. EIS: TOML. Final Application ISA-TOML. Exploitation Contract.” | The Metals Company presentation to Analyst Day, May 17 2021, page 19. |
| March 24, 2022 | Q4 2024 | Expected production readiness by Q4 2024. | The Metals Company, Press Release, Mar 24, 2022, |
| May 9, 2022 | Q4 2024 | (Project Zero) “OFFSHORE: Expected start: Q4 2024” | The Metals Company, Q1 2022 Corporate Update Presentation, slide 9, |
| Aug 15, 2022 | 2nd Half 2024 | “NORI-D Project Zero Production Start Expected 2H (second half of) 2024.” | The Metals Company, Q2 2022 Corporate Update Presentation, slide 21, |
| May 11, 2023 | Late 2024 / early 2025 | July 2023 Roadmap date set in Q3 2021 for ISA to adopt final exploitation regulations. Late ’24 / Early ‘25 Estimated initial commercial production on NORI-D area. | The Metals Company, Q1 2023 Corporate Update Presentation, slide 8, |
| May 29, 2023 | End 2024 | Presenter asks how TMC is likely to get mining started by the end of next year - Gerard Barron then seeks to explain why noting "the mining final code is expected to be adopted by the regulator by the end of the year [i.e. 2023] ... we're confident we'll be in a condition to launch that application by the end of 2023" | Bloomberg, "We see deep sea metals extraction happening by end of next year: The Metals Company CEO", |
| Mar 25, 2024 | Q1 2026 | We now expect to commence production offshore at the end of the first quarter of 2026, assuming an ISA review process of approximately one year from the submission of our application.” https://investors.metals.co/news-releases/news-release-details/tmc-announces-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2023-results (TMC website, April 2024) Aug 14, 2025 Q4 2027 "The news follows earlier determinations of substantial compliance in May 2025, demonstrating a systematic regulatory process under the Deep Seabed Hard Minerals Resources Act (DSHMRA) as the Company targets Q4 2027 production start.” | The Metals Company Announces Second Quarter 2025 Corporate Update |
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