Proven Deepwater Technology

Capitalizing on two decades of experience in offshore exploration in our partner SeaBird Exploration, enables Green Minerals to take a leading role in the development of the marine minerals industry from the outset

The technologies are largely known through a combination of established mining technologies and deepwater oil&gas. Green Minerals aims to modify these technologies to optimize flowrates and costs. We are working on several studies organized under two main areas within exploration and production systems. We cooperate with leading academic institutions in marine minerals as well as innovation programs in EU and Norway targeted at the green shift. We will announce key milestones as we progress towards the first licencing round.

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Figure 1: Transforming a low-resolution bathymetry into a prospectivity map – the play approach (Ellefmo et al., 2019)

Our exploration will be based on developing a prospectivity model (aka Play map) by interpreting large scale geological data such as bathymetry 

The prospective areas will be locally surveyed using techniques such as: 

  • High resolution seismic 
  • High-resolution bathymetry e.g. Synthetic Aperture Sonar 
  • Electromagnetic surveys, a typical is shown on Figure 2
  • Water chemistry 
  • Underwater hyper spectral imaging 
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Figure 2: Magnetic mapping of a SMS area (Lim et al., 2019)
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Figure 3: The MEBO 200 Drilling Unit at sea (Marum, 2021)

Identified mineral deposits will be drilled to provide our geologists with physical samples essential for the mining study

To support environmental baseline surveys, biological sampling tools will be used during the exploration phase

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Figure 4: A typical subsea DNA sample (Yamahara et al., 2019)
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Source: The Nautilus Project

In production, we are tailoring known technologies along the following main concepts

Seafloor Mining Tools

  • Trencher/Feed system or
  • Crawler/Crusher/Feed system to:
  • Dig out, Collect, Crush and Feed ore to Vertical transport system

Vertical Transport

  • Mechanical lifting system or
  • Riser/slurry or air based pumping system to
  • Transport ore to surface facility
  • Seawater return system

Surface facility

  • Ship based production facility to provide:
  • Dewatering and storage of ore
  • Offloading system for ore to bulk carrier
  • Seafloor mining tools storage, launch/retrieval, energy supply and control systems
  • Vertical transport system storage, launch/retrieval, energy supply and control system
  • Energy supply, storage, auxiliary systems, living quarters etc.