DORD participated the 27th Assembly and Council Sessions of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Kingston, Jamaica, which were held in July 2022 for the Assembly Session and for three times in March, July and November 2022 for the Council Sessions. It was the first time in two years since the last time DORD participated the 26 Council session held in February 2020 as in-person meetings were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
DORD participated the Underwater Mining Conference held in Florida, the United States of America, from 2 to 7 October 2022 and collected information relating to deep seabed resources.
In accordance with the exploration contract with the ISA, DORD conducted the ISA-Contractor Training Programme toward personnel from developing States for their capacity development related with exploration and exploitation of deep seabed resources from the end of October to early December 2022.
A total of five trainees, two from Namibia, one from Tanzania, Somalia and Kiribati, participated the Programme. The Programme consisted of on-land training including lectures and workshops by the experts in deep-sea mineral resources and at-sea training by participating the geophysical surveys conducted in the sea near Japan, with cooperation from various organizations and academics, including Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC), the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and Kobe University.
A trainee learning about an air gun
Visiting the Training Ship "Kaijin Maru" at Kobe University
In accordance with the United Nation of the Law of the Sea and under the exploration contract signed with the ISA in June 2001, followed by agreement on the extension of the contract for five years signed in 2016, DORD has been conducting exploration activities, including resource assessment, environmental surveys, mining and processing technologies, focusing on the polymetallic nodules in the contract area located southeast off of Hawaii islands in the Area. Extension of another five years of the contract was approved by the ISA Council in 2021 and the agreement on the extension of the contract for exploration for polymetallic nodules for a period of five years was signed by the ISA and DORD in November 2022.
Two members from DORD participated the fifth annual meeting of exploration contractors held in the Netherlands from 5 to 7 December 2022 and exchanged ideas and opinions with the ISA Secretariat and other contractors. The meeting was hosted by Allseas and the Technical University of Delft. During a visit to the University, we had an opportunity to learn about their technical study and research on seabed resources development and to visit their facilities.
Copyright: International Seabed Authority
Since the ISA training programme for trainees from developing countries that was originally planned to be held in Japan in 2020 could not be conducted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, an online training programme was implemented for the selected trainees in May 2021.
It was the first time for DORD to conduct an online training programme and five trainees from five countries, namely Columbia, Ecuador, Bangladesh, Egypt and Indonesia, participated the programme.
The online training programme consisted of two parts: one was an online lecture where the trainees view the lecture documents prepared by experts in deep sea mineral resources from a designated website to learn about each expertise, and the other was interactive sessions that allowed the trainees and lectures to discuss and exchange thoughts for each theme. The contents of the lectures focused on the activities that we are involved as a contractor, such as fundamental information about exploration of polymetallic nodules, including geology, cruise survey, environmental survey, metallurgy and economic assessment. In addition, lectures about geophysical exploration of marine mineral resources, which is indispensable for exploration of seabed mineral resources, basic knowledge about other mineral resources, such as polymetallic sulphides and cobalt-rich ferromanganese, and information about ISA were also provided.
The online training programme was successfully completed upon receipt of the reports prepared and submitted by the trainees and issuance of training certificate for each trainee by DORD.
DORD started a cruise survey in the contract area, as well as Areas of Particular Environmental Interest 10, in the Clarion Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCZ) under the exploration contract with the International Seabed Authority, from 9 October 2021 and successfully completed on 24 October 2021.
The survey was conducted with the research vessel, Kilo Moana, of the University of Hawaii, focusing on environmental studies by using survey equipment such as multiple corers, as well as Edokko Mark 1, a seafloor observatory video system.
Edokko Mark 1 is an equipment introduced as an example of seafloor observatories in Annex A of ISO 23731, Marine technology – Marine environment impact assessment (MEIA) – Performance specification for in situ image-based surveys in deep seafloor environments. It is the world’s first success to observe seafloor demersal fish and scavengers by using Edokko Mark 1 at more than 5,000 depth of water in the CCZ area.
Monitoring of underwater sound from the sea bottom to the surface of water was also conducted. The samples collected from the survey will be analyzed to further advance understanding of the marine environment.
Installation of Edokko Mark 1
Click to 2021 on-line training
(Authorized member only)
The cruise survey in the contract area of the Clarion Clipperton Facture Zone under the exploration contract with the International Seabed Authority was implemented in early August 2019 and successfully completed on 27 August 2019.
The survey was conducted with the research vessel, Kilo Moana, of the University of Hawaii with survey equipment such as multiple corer and box corer to study natural environment in the survey area.
A Group Photo upon landing Hawaii
The 2019 ISA Training Programme for the trainees from developing States under the exploration contract with the International Seabed Authority, which started since 21 July 2019, was successfully completed on 28 August 2019.
Trainees were from five different countries, namely Mexico, Argentina, Fiji, Cameroon and Nigeria. The training programme included lectures by experts in deep sea mineral resources, practical training with ocean cores, visit to a smelting plant, at-sea training on the research vessel, Hakurei, offshore of Okinawa, and so on.
The ceremony for completion of the programme was held on 27 August 2019. The trainees reported what they have learned and achieved from the programme, as well as their impression on Japanese culture, and a certificate for completion of the programme was delivered to each trainee. All trainees departed Tokyo for their home on the following day, 28 August 2019.
Lecture provided by Dr. Fukushima of JAMSTEC
Trainees listening to Dr. Usui at Kochi University
At-sea Training: Implementation of the Equipment
At the Certificate Ceremony
Presentation of Achievements and Certificate Ceremony
A call for submission of application for 2020 training programme for trainees from developing States organized by DORD is now posted on the ISA homepage.
The programme is planned for between June and September 2020 for a duration of 30 days. Application for the programme should be submitted, in the forms required by the ISA, to the ISA by the 18 October 2019 deadline.
Please check the ISA homepage for further information:
https://www.isa.org.jm/training/deep-ocean-resources-development-co-ltd-japan
We attended the 25th Annual Assembly and Council of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Kingston, Jamaica, from 15 July to 26 July 2019.
The official commemoration of ISA's 25th anniversary was held on the 25th of July as this year is the 25th year since the ISA was established. The anniversary received statements from high level officials, such as the Prime Minister of Jamaica, the Most Honorable Andrew Holness, followed by others, such as the President of Nauru, Mr. Baron Waqa, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, Mr. Miguel de Serpa Soares, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs and Secretary-General for the UN Oceans Conference, Mr. Liu Zehnmin, and President of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, Mr. Jin-Hyun Paik.
During the commemoration, Dr. Mauricio Shimabukuro of Brazil was awarded for the 2019 edition of the ISA Secretary-General's Award for Excellence in Deep Sea Research, which started last year. Also, the Secretary-General launched the database called DeepData, which contains environmental data submitted by ISA's contractors.
The environmental data collected from DORD's marine surveys is also part of DeepData and further development of the database is anticipated.
Under the exploration contract with the ISA, a training programme for trainees from developing States has started since July 21, 2019.
This programme will be conducted from July 21 until August 28, 2019, in order to improve knowledge of trainees towards deep-sea mineral resources development.
Various training sessions, from lectures to at-sea training, are planned in cooperation with a number of institutions, such as Kochi University, that have abundant knowledge and experience of study and research on deep-sea mineral resources.
A welcome party for the trainees was held on July 22, 2019.
We had a presentation titled “Preliminary Shipboard Observations of Nodule Fauna in a Polymetallic Nodule Area of the Western Part of the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone” at the 29th International Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference (ISOPE-2019) held between 16-21 June 2019 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The contents of the presentation were about deep-sea organisms collected from the ocean survey conducted last year. Nodule fauna, the organisms live on polymetallic nodules, are attracting attention worldwide in recent years as one of the baseline survey items.
In this presentation, we explained the results on the variety and faunal density of nodule fauna collected from DORD’s license area.
International Conference Venue
Presentation by DORD staff
We participated the workshop on the development of standards and guidelines for the Mining Code was held from 13-15 May 2019 in Pretoria, South Africa.
One of the expected outcomes of the workshop was to establish a process for the development of standards for exploitation activities in the Area. The workshop included some presentations by experts from related industries and some countries, as well as scientists, and group discussions on relevant topics.
The report of the workshop is to be drafted by a small working group as the second part of the workshop held from 16-17 May 2019.
We attended the 25th Annual Assembly of the International Seabed Authority(ISA) in Kingston, Jamaica, from 25 February to 1 March 2019.
The ISA is currently under the development of exploitation regulations and we participate this development process as a stakeholder.
